Needs analysis students’ perceptions of languageneeds at hanoi university of pharmacy

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER NEEDS ANALYSIS: STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

NEEDS ANALYSIS: STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LANGUAGE

NEEDS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF PHARMACY

Supervisor: Cấn Thị Chang Duyên M.A Student: Nguyễn Tùng Linh

Course: QH2016.F1.E1

Hanoi, 2020

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

PHÂN TÍCH NHU CẦU NGƯỜI HỌC: NHẬN THỨC CỦA SINH VIÊN VỀ NHU CẦU HỌC TIẾNG ANH TẠI

ĐẠI HỌC DƯỢC HÀ NỘI

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: ThS Cấn Thị Chang Duyên Sinh viên: Nguyễn Tùng Linh

Khóa: QH2016.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI – 2020

Signature

Date: 11/05/2020

Secondly, only with the enthusiastic support from HUP‟s teachers and students did the research produce fruitful and valid results

Finally, I am appreciative of my friends and family, who have provided me with remarkable emotional support throughout the journey

With deepest gratitude,

ABSTRACT

The need for English in the context of pharmacy has become increasingly inevitable over the years Acknowledging the importance of that, in 2012, Hanoi University of Pharmacy (HUP) has implemented the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program into the graduate curriculum As ESP is still in its experimental years at HUP, a lack of efficiency was hypothesized

This paper aims to investigate language needs in the context of ESP for pharmacy students, from the perspectives of students and teachers In addition to the use of the survey, the researcher gathered data through questionnaires distributed among the whole population of 102 participants, followed by in-depth interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the participants‟ experience The findings revealed that English language skills, including reading, writing, listening, speaking, were perceived to be essential for students in both their academic and professional aspects Among these, reading was perceived as more critical as being used more frequently The outcomes also indicated that both teachers and students share a similar view on the need to improve students‟ reading skills Moreover, the students also emphasized the significance of communicative skills in the pharmacy context Surprisingly, this was neither mentioned

by teachers and course designers nor included in the course syllabus With the findings yielded from questionnaires and interviews, this study is expected to serve as a reference for course designers at HUP in particular and other pharmacy universities, in general, to take into consideration while designing their ESP syllabus

Keywords: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Need Analysis

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: “The Tree of ELT” 8

Figure 2: The ESP “Family Tree” 8

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Importance of the English language 23

Table 2 Pharmacy Students‟ Purposes of Learning English at university 23

Table 3 Pharmacy Students‟ Perceived confidence over skills 24

Table 4 The Significance Order of Major Language Skills 26

Table 5 The importance of Improving Listening Skill 27

Table 6: The importance of Improving Reading Skill 28

Table 7: The importance of Improving Writing Skill 29

Table 8: The importance of Improving Speaking Skill 29

Table 9: Interests in learning English skills 30

Table 10: Preferences for learning activities 36

Table 11: Preferences for learning methods 37

Table 12: Preferences for classroom interaction 38

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CNP: Communicative Needs Processor

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

ELT: English Language Teaching

EOP: English for Occupational Purposes

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

GE: General English

HUP: Hanoi University of Pharmacy

PNA: Pedagogic Needs Analysis

PSA: Present Situation Analysis

TSA: Target Situation Analysis

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF FIGURES iii

CHAPTER ONE 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the research problem 1

1.2 Research Aims and Research Question 3

1.3 Significance of the study 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Structure of the study 4

CHAPTER TWO 5

LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 English for Specific Purposes (ESP) 5

2.1.1 Definitions of ESP 5

2.1.2 Characteristics of ESP 6

2.1.3 Branches of ESP 7

2.2 Need analysis 9

2.2.1 Definitions and importance of needs analysis 9

2.2.2 Classification of Needs 10

2.2.3 Approaches to Needs Analysis 11

2.3 Previous Studies 13

CHAPTER THREE 16

METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Research Design and Approach 16

3.2 Participants 17

3.3 Instruments 17

3.3.1 Students‟ questionnaires 17

3.3.2 Teachers‟ interview 19

3.3.3 Students‟ interview 19

3.4 Procedures 20

3.4.1 Data collection 20

3.4.2 Data analysis 21

CHAPTER FOUR 22

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 22

4.1 Results 22

4.1.1 To what extent are the perceived Pharmacy English language needs of fourth-year students addressed in the course? 22

4.1.2 To what extent do the teaching methods and activities in the course meet students' preferences? 35

4.2 Discussion 40

4.2.1 Language needs of pharmacy students at HUP 40

4.2.2 Issues related to teaching ESP practice in HUP 42

CHAPTER FIVE 43

CONCLUSION 43

5.1 INTRODUCTION 43

5.2 SUMMARY OF MAIN FINDINGS 44

5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS 45

5.4 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 45

5.5 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES 46

REFERENCES 47

APPENDIX 48

APPENDIX A: 48

STUDENTS‟ QUESTIONNAIRES 48

APPENDIX B: 58

TEACHERS‟ INTERVIEW QUESTION GUIDLINE 58

APPENDIX C: 59

STUDENTS‟ INTERVIEW QUESTION GUIDELINE 59

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the research problem

In the trend of modernization, it is widely recognized that the English language has now played an increasingly important role in the development of science, technology, politics, economics, culture, and international relations In order to meet the exigent requirements of the new world, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has emerged as a branch of English Language Teaching According to Gao (2007), the demand for ESP is expanding, especially in countries where English is taught as a foreign language Vietnam, as a developing nation, accordingly has attempted to equip its graduates with all the necessary skills that are considered highly-in-demand in the current market As a result, ESP teaching and learning have been gaining in popularity among Vietnamese universities

Recently, ESP in Vietnam has developed as an insensible branch in language teaching with to cater for the increasing demand for professional communication in the era of international economic integration Fully aware of the significance of ESP, Hanoi University of Pharmacy (HUP) has introduced ESP courses into the curricula of all undergraduate specialized-orientation programs, including clinical pharmacy, pharmaceutical management, and pharmacoeconomics, drug quality assurance, pharmacognosy and traditional pharmacy In the context of HUP, students are required to take 3 General English (GE) courses with a total of 6 credits After completing the GE courses, they are supposed to take three consecutive ESP courses, designed to match students‟ specialized orientation According to the curriculum issued at the Decision No 289/QD-DHN dated 14 June 2012 by the Rector of HUP, the ESP courses are provided to students from the second semester of the fourth academic year It is said that after the course, students will be able to achieve English proficiency of 400 points TOEIC (equivalent to A2 level according to the Common European Reference Framework) or other forms of evaluation of English; have abilities to communicate in basic situations and read specialized documents in English

Having been tutoring English for a few fourth-year students from HUP for six months, I was told by a number of students that their study of ESP at university was not sufficient enough as it failed to address all of their language needs It is believed that there exists some inconsistency between what the students are taught and what they need

to be taught in order to be successful in their further academic studies and future profession Taking a glance at the provided textbook for the first semester of ESP, it is easy to recognize that the textbook is simply a compilation of texts and exercises, most of which are written with upper-intermediate level vocabulary and grammar The texts are taken directly from various academic sources without being simplified or adapted; therefore, they are too challenging for university students whose English is at the pre-intermediate level

Despite the importance of need analysis in ESP course design or material selection, the ESP courses taught at HUP were known not to be preceded by any type of needs analysis It is stated in the first pages of the core material that the ESP course is a text-based course instead of a need-based course The book provides ten chapters that demonstrate only the fundamental knowledge of pharmacy written in the English language John (1991) stated that needs analysis is the first step in course design, and it provides validity and relevancy for all subsequent course design activities A number of scholars such as Hutchinson and Waters (1987), Nunan (1988), Brindley (1989), Robinson (1991), Brown (1995), Seedhouse (1995), West (1997), Graves (1999), Richards (2001), and Long (2005), agree that needs analysis is the cornerstone of ESP course design and should not be omitted from the process The lack of needs analysis may result in that the course may not fulfil students' expectations of the taught language,

as well as ensuring the suitability for students' preferred learning activities In this sense, addressing and evaluating pharmacy students‟ needs is an urgent task, as it will help enhance students‟ motivation to learn as well as course effectiveness as perceived by students

Acknowledging the importance of needs analysis in English for Pharmacy course, the researcher decides to carry out a study which investigates the language needs of ESP

for fourth-year pharmacy students After analyzing those needs, some suggestions and adaptations will be provided, which hopefully will serve as a base for course designers, teachers and policymakers at HUP to rely on when designing future ESP course syllabus

1.2 Research Aims and Research Question

The main aim of this study is to identify the language needs of fourth-year students at HUP and the perceptions of those needs from ESP course designers, which serve as the foundation and suggestions for course designers to take into consideration when designing future ESP syllabus for the first semester of the ESP courses

In other words, the study seeks answers to the following questions:

1 To what extent are the perceived Pharmacy English language needs of year students addressed in the course?

fourth-2 To what extent do the teaching methods and activities in the course meet students' preferences?

1.3 Significance of the study

Although the study was carried out in the context of HUP only, the researcher hopes that its results could be significant in several ways Through an authentic and careful need analysis, the study would provide empirical data about various language needs to be perceived by students and teachers in the context of pharmacy, which, in return, can be served as an input for course designers when designing ESP syllabus for pharmacy students

1.4 Scope of the study

This study focuses on the perceptions of the needs for ESP of fourth-year pharmacy students at HUP The reason why the researcher did not include first, second and third-year students is that only fourth-year students have enough experiences and knowledge to be conscious about their needs of English for pharmaceutical purposes as they have passed the Basic English courses, as well as having participated in some specialization courses

In the study, these following aspects were in focus:

1) The students‟ purposes for learning English at university

2) The students‟ interests and needs in learning sub-skills and their preferred method

of learning English

3) Subject teachers‟ perception of:

- Students‟ needs for ESP

- The relevance between course content and students‟ needs

1.5 Structure of the study

The present paper is constructed by five chapters

The current one – Chapter one is the introduction chapter which reveals the

context and purposes of the study, the scope and significance of the study

Chapter two presents a Literature Review, which is an overview of what had been

discussed about the issues in the area of ESP In this part, definitions about ESP and needs analysis, as well as other aspects of ESP are provided, followed by the comparison among various papers both globally and locally on needs analysis in the field of ESP These findings help to position the significance of the research, as well as providing a framework for the research to follow

Chapter three provides information about the Methodology of the research, in

which a triangular approach is implemented with various sources of instruments This part also explains why these methods were chosen and how the data collection and analysis was conducted

Chapter four reveals the results and discussion of major findings In addition, it

also provides insightful answers to the research questions

The last chapter – chapter five draws a conclusion to the whole research In this

part, some limitations of the research are admitted, followed by suggestions for course designers and further studies

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

2.1.1 Definitions of ESP

In order to acquire a preliminary grasp of the research topic, it is essential to specify the history and definition of ESP In terms of ESP origins, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) point out that the rapid expansion in technical, scientific and economic activities in the early 1970s led many people to learn English specific reasons Necessitated by the exigent requirements of the new world, the 1960s witnessed the emergence of a new branch of English Language Teaching, named English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Since then, English has become the subject "to the wishes, needs and demands of people other than language teachers" in different classifications of various scholars of the English language

Different scholars have given various definitions of ESP over time According to Mackay and Mountford (1978), “ESP is generally used to refer to the teaching of English for a clearly utilitarian purpose.” (p.3) Following the point, learners should be taught English in a way that can help them achieve special language skills in both vocational and professional situations In the same vein, Robinson (1991) asserts that generally, students study English because of study or work purposes Similarly, later in 2006, Basturkmen writes to agree that ESP was aimed to help language learners to develop necessary competency in a specific environment:

“In ESP, language is learnt not for its own sake or for the sake of gaining a general education, but to smooth the path to entry or greater linguistic efficiency in academic, professional or workplace environments.” (p.18) According to the definitions mentioned above (from 1978 to 2006), it is fair to claim that ESP is a goal-directed approach, as summarized by Hutchinson and Waters

(1987) ESP is "an approach to language teaching, which aims to meet the needs of particular learners" (p.21)

2.1.2 Characteristics of ESP

In defining ESP, Strevens (1988) has identified its four absolute and two-variable characteristics

Absolute Characteristics

ESP consists of English language teaching including:

 designed to meet specified needs of the learner;

 related in content (i.e., in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines, occupations, and activities;

 centred on the language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse,

 semantics, etc., and analysis of this discourse;

 in contrast with General English

Variable Characteristics

ESP may be, but is not necessarily:

 restricted as to the language skills to be learned;

 not taught according to any pre-ordained methodology

Ten years later, in 1998, Dudley-Evans and St John made some modifications to Strevens' definition, which is as follows:

Absolute Characteristics

 ESP consists of English language teaching;

 ESP is defined to meet the specific needs of the learner;

 ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipline

it serves;

 ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, and register), skills, discourse, and genres appropriate to these activities

Variable Characteristics

 ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;

 ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of general English;

 ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation It could, however, be for learners at the secondary school level;

 ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students;

 Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language system, but

it can be used with beginners

From the definition made in 1988, it can clearly be seen that such alteration involved removing the absolute characteristics that “ESP is in contrast with General English” and inserting more variable characteristics However, the central importance of addressing learners' needs when designing language activities remains unchanged Regardless of different ideas on the definition of the term, it is widely agreed among researchers that learners' needs assessment is essential, and it influences other further processes in course design

2.1.3 Branches of ESP

Throughout its development, ESP has been divided into smaller types in order to cater for different learning and teaching situations In 1997, Hutchinson & Waters divided ESP into three branches:

a) English for Science and Technology,

b) English for Business and Economics,

c) English for Social Studies

Each of these subjects is later separated into two types, which are English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP), as shown in the figure below:

Figure 1: “The Tree of ELT”

Source: Hutchinson & Waters (1987, p.17)

In 1991, Robinson proposed a family tree model of ESP where he emphasized the period when the ESP course took place, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 2: The ESP “Family Tree”

Source: Robinson (1991, p.3)

It is a shared thought among two famous scholars in the field of ESP that ESP can

be categorized as EAP and EOP However, there is a major distinction between EAP and EOP The only difference lies in the nature of the learner To be more specific, while EAP has university or college students as its learners, EOP has employees as such

EAP aims to provide students with necessary language skills in order to enable them to function well in the academic context In this sense, English is considered a tool

to help students develop their specialization expertise On the other hand, as stated by Kennedy and Bolitho (1984, p.4): “EOP is taught in a situation in which learners need to use English as part of their work or profession.” In other words, EOP course aims to equip the needs of communicating in English in employment situations

2.2 Need analysis

2.2.1 Definitions and importance of needs analysis

Since its first appearance in the 1960s, the importance of needs analysis is confirmed by various scholars from time to time According to Dudley-Vans and St John (1998), “needs analysis is the cornerstone of ESP and leads to a focused course” (p.122)

In line with that, Robinson (1991) proclaims the primacy of needs analysis in her process

of defining ESP She also recommends that needs assessment should be done cyclically

so that it can be built into the formative process

Needs analysis is compared to the diagnosis before the doctor's prescription in foreign language teaching (Long, 2005) According to Nunan (1988), the first step in conducting a needs analysis is to decide on what data need to be collected, when they should be collected, by whom, through what means and for what purposes Later in

1995, Brown claimed that needs analysis (also called needs assessment) involves activities and procedures conducted to gather necessary information for designing an effective curriculum, which will meet the needs of the particular group of students This

is also further recognized by Graves (2000) She further points out that needs analysis involves gathering information about how much the students already know and what they

need to learn In a needs analysis, the topics, language uses, and skills considered most important for the target group to learn are investigated

2.2.2 Classification of Needs

In terms of classifications of needs, scholars hold different views Both Brindley (1989) and Robinson (1991) classify needs into objective needs and subjective needs According to Brindley (1989), objective needs are the needs that are inferred from the

"factual information" of learners, which include their language proficiency when attending the courses, the perceived language difficulties, and their demand for language

in real communication situations Objective needs can be elicited from the basis of factual data about learners' biographical information, current language proficiency, pre-learned language courses All of the information should be included in the process of assessing objective needs Meanwhile, subjective needs reveal learners' mental and emotional needs

in the learning situation To be more precise, it refers to the needs that are inferred from the "affective and cognitive factors" of the learners These factors include the learners' personality, personal cognitive styles, expectation during the learning process (Brindley, 1989)

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) offer the concept of target and learning needs Target needs refer to what students are required to do in the target situation and can be further divided into three categories The first one refers to necessities, which indicates what students need to learn in order to perform in the target situation The second points out the lack, which indicates the gap between what students already know and what will

be needed in the target situation Finally, wants, which is used to reveal students' perceptions of what they need The other type of needs proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) is learning needs This type of needs requires investigation of how learners learn Particularly, it includes information about learners, reasons for learning the language, as well as course time and location (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987) Hutchinson

& Waters (1987) also asserted that by including learners' learning needs in the needs assessment, course designers have more understanding of learners' motivation, the conditions of the learning situation, and their existing knowledge and skills

2.2.3 Approaches to Needs Analysis

Various approaches can be identified to investigate the concept of Needs Analysis (Ali, 2011; Kaewpet, 2009; Songhori, 2008) Ali (2011) proposes target situation analysis (TSA) and present situation analysis (PSA), which are primary constituents for analyzing students' language learning needs Meanwhile, Songhori introduces the presence of pedagogical needs analysis (PNA), which provides a foundation for the researcher to design the questionnaires

Target Situation Analysis

According to Songhori (2008), Target Situation Analysis (TSA) was first used

by Chambers in 1980 when he attempted to clarify the terminology confusion For Chambers, TSA is regarded as "communication in the target situation" Later in 1978, Munby employed this model when he introduced his Communicative Needs Processor (CNP) and formulates the well-known framework of TSA In his paper, Munby addresses that the target needs and target level performance are established by investigating the target situation He also confirms the place of needs analysis as central to ESP According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), the birth of CNP marked the growth of ESP:

“With the development of the CNP it seemed as if ESP had come of age The machinery for identifying the needs of any group of learners had been provided: all the course designers had to do was to operate it.” (p.17)

Many researchers in the field adopt Munby's CNP In 1987, Hutchinson and Waters proposed a comprehensive target situation analysis framework, a compilation of questions, which the analyst should find answers According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), TSA is "in essence a matter of asking questions about the target situation and the attitudes towards that situation of various participants in the learning process." In line with that, Dudley-Evans and St.John (1998) asserted that “TSA refers to the task and

activities learners are/will be using English for target situation.” (p.124)

Despite being followed by various scholars, Munby's model has a few shortcomings in terms of complexity, leaner-centeredness, constraints, languages (West,

1994) Hutchinson and Waters (1987) also say that the process of writing a target profile for every student based on Munby's model is too time-consuming Shared by West (1994) and Hutchinson and Waters (1987), this model appears only to consider one perspective, i.e., that of the analyst but neglects others In fact, it does not pay attention to the learning needs of learners as well as providing a distinction between necessities, wants, and lacks

Present Situation Analysis (PSA)

As mentioned above, TSA aims to identify what learners should be able to do after the course in the target situation, whereas Present Situation Analysis (PSA) seeks to establish what learners are at the beginning of the course In 1991, Robinson pointed out that PSA aims to clarify the situation of students at the beginning of their language course, by investigating their strengths and weaknesses Similarly, according to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), a PSA seeks to ascertain learners' strengths and weaknesses in terms of language, skills, and learning experiences at the beginning of a language course

In other words, the starting point of the course can only be defined through the means of PSA

According to Songhori (2008), PSA was first brought into views by Richterich and Chancerel in the 1980s to serve multiple purposes by providing information from different sources For instance, it requires data from students, the educational organization, as well as the professional establishment To estimate learners' present situation in the language, placement tests could be used as a useful data source

Needs analysis should be seen as a combination of both TSA and PSA (Robinson, 1991) As noted, within the scope of ESP, one cannot rely either on TSA or PSA as the only reliable indicator of what is needed to enhance learning experiences and achieving the learning objectives Consequently, several different approaches to needs analysis have been brought, such as Pedagogic Needs Analysis

2.2.4 Pedagogic Needs Analysis

As proposed by West (1998), the term “pedagogic needs analysis” is an umbrella term that covers three elements of needs analysis, namely deficiency analysis, strategy

analysis or learning needs analysis, and means analysis In deficiency analysis, students are evaluated to see what they lack in terms of language skills This matches the definition of lacks, as proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987)

In order to take into account learners' views of learning, strategy analysis or learning needs analysis should be included According to West (1998), this analysis attempts to establish how the learners wish to learn rather than what they need to learn, which corresponds to Hutchinson and Waters' (1987) definition of wants (perceived or subjective needs of learners)

Meanwhile, means analysis tries to provide information about the environment in which the course will be run, as mentioned by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) To be more precise, means analysis includes information of the local environment (teachers, teaching methods, student facilities, etc.)

To sum up, needs investigation frameworks in ESP context should be flexible Concerning several approaches in needs analysis, the researcher decides to adopt the approach proposed by Dudley-Evans and St John‟ which includes TSA, PSA and PNA This choice of approaches seems the most appropriate for the researcher to design the questionnaire because the target ESP course for pharmacy students at HUP aims at equipping pharmacy students with language skills to perform in various situations

Over the period of time, many studies have been conducted worldwide in order to examine students‟ needs from the perspectives of the learners and content teachers in the pharmacy/medical context

In 1995, Mayo and Núñez Ant studied the needs of pharmacy students at the College of the Pharmacy of the University of the Basque Country The data of the study

is obtained from both interviews with the Pharmacy specialists and questionnaires with the Pharmacy students According to the interviews, specialists asserted the utmost priority to the improvement of students‟ reading and writing skills Meanwhile, students are reported to be interested in enhancing not only these skills but also communicative skills

In a quantitative study conducted in 2012 with 40 undergraduate level students from Pharmacy department and four teachers, Chowdhury & Haider evaluated the efficacy of EAP courses offered at the University of Asia Pacific (UAP), Bangladesh By analyzing the course content and investigating the educational and vocational needs of pharmacy students, the result indicates that there is much room for the improvement of the course While students are found to use writing and reading skills most during their time at university, there is little emphasis on these parts found in the syllabus The findings called for giving particular priorities to develop writing and reading, as well as speaking skills to meet the expectation of most students

In a study using structured questionnaires to determine the language needs of 169 medical students at Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey, M N Kayaoğlu & R Dağ Akbaş (2016) found that the students learn English mostly to be able to interact with others and to achieve higher scores in the related language exams In this way, speaking

is perceived as the essential skill to improve during university time, followed by listening, reading, and writing respectively This finding contradicts several papers, which suggest that reading and writing instead is the most important skills to master

A study by Khan (2017) in the Arabic context examined curricular and pedagogic issues and learning needs through questionnaires from 41 teachers of ESP The findings revealed that there exists a mismatch between present needs and the curriculum This result might indicate that the curriculum needs a change under the current academic/professional needs Khan also suggests that teachers should be trained and developed with pharmacy background knowledge in order to enhance study efficiency

In the same year, Putra from the University of Mataram conducted a study to analyze the needs of teaching ESP at the pharmacy department The data was collected from 41 students through questionnaires, as well as from the lecturer and the related policy Its findings are aligned with previous studies that pharmacy students‟ needs are reading the academic literature in English

Although the studies mentioned earlier revolved around the language needs of pharmacy students in a different year of studies through a wide range of perceptions,

those needs as perceived by several parties has not yet been well examined in Vietnam context There is a little number of studies concerning pharmacy students‟ needs for English conducted in Vietnam universities Nguyen et al (2017) conducted a study using three self-administered questionnaires to collect the information from sophomores, final-year, and pharmacist graduating in 2016 The study aims to provide a need-based evaluation of the effectiveness of ESP pharmacy course at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The study found out that the course syllabus did not fully address all the needs of final-year students and pharmacists for both vocational and educational purposes, despite the low frequency of language use Pharmacy students are reported to use English mainly for researching and understanding specialized materials

However, the study of Nguyen et al (2017) has only touched some part of the language needs for pharmacy students, as it investigates the perspective from those who finished learning ESP courses This lacks the perspective of pre-learning and while-learning students Therefore, this paper will contribute to the existing body of literature to provide deeper insights into the needs of the pharmacy students in Vietnam context

Overall, it is evident that most of the authors have acknowledged the importance

of English for pharmacy students in the modernization context The shared outcomes from these studies indicate that reading and writing are the most important skills to improve the academic success of pharmacy students To be more precise, the ability to read and understand pharmacy articles, books, journals, and other pharmacy works of literatures are widely recognized among students across the globe as the essential skills for ESP in the pharmacy context

CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design and Approach

The researcher decided to build the study based on a triangular approach, which requires multiple sources of data collection It includes the use of questionnaires for target students and interviews designed for them as well as for ESP teachers This process was done to cross-check the validity of the results and to enable the researcher to tackle the problem from different angles as Hutchinson & Waters (1987) stated in the ESP context that:

“There are a number of ways in which information can be gathered about needs The most frequently used are: Questionnaires; Interviews; Observation… In view of the complexity of needs which we have seen, it is desirable to use more than one of these methods.” (p 58-59)

This view is confirmed by Weir and Robert (1993) that:

“A combination of data sources is likely to be necessary for most evaluations because often no one source can describe adequately such a diversity to features as is found in educational settings, and because of the need for corroboration of findings by using data from these different sources, collected by different methods and by different people (i.e.,

“triangulation”).” (p 137) Prior researchers viewed “triangulation” as an appropriate approach to collect valid data, because investigation based on one source of information is more likely to be inadequate and, to some extent, tends to have negative effects on the researcher‟s view of the situation All things considered, it is essential that the researcher adopt the triangular approach and use multiple sources of instruments to gather valid information for the study

3.2 Participants

The study collects data from 100 pharmacy students from all specialized orientations who are studying the first semester of the ESP course All of them have passed the Basic English 3 course; thus, the assumed level of English is A2 (Pre-Intermediate) Besides, the study also gathers information from some ESP teachers from the department of the university

The reasons for not including first and second-year students were that, on the one hand, they were still at the beginning of their university study, and therefore, it was difficult for them to form a clear idea about their needs for English language (Alastal & Shuib, 2012) On the other hand, the selected groups have experience studying both English language and their specialization subjects at university Therefore, it is assumed that they are equipped with enough knowledge and experience to determine the importance and needs for the English language in the pharmacy context

In this study, the questionnaire is designed to elicit data from the respondents to investigate the research questions and hypotheses Considering ethical, budgetary, and time constraints, among others, the researcher chose structured questionnaires as the vital instrument to investigate the language needs of the pharmacy students The questionnaire will be delivered to the targeted students online via Google form for convenient and practical reasons In order to ensure the highest rate of return and to avoid incomplete answers, the questionnaires will also be translated into Vietnamese to help the participants to answer the questions as clearly as possible

The questionnaire is developed based on several approaches of needs analysis reviewed by M H Songhori (2008), which are: TSA, PSA, PNA Along with TSA and PSA, the term PNA was introduced to provide an insightful understanding of such constituents as deficiency analysis (lacks, problems that students may experience, the gap between present and target level of skills mastery) and strategy analysis (learners‟ perception of learning, their view of how they want to study in terms of strategy and style

of learning) This system of approaches seems the most exhaustive and suitable for the researcher to design the questionnaire since the target course is an ESP course which aims at equipping our learners with sufficient language to function in several familiar situations

The questionnaire is utilized from Kayaoğlu Akbaş‟s research in 2016 but with several adaptations Such alterations involved the omission and inclusions of some items

as well as rewording

The questionnaire for students was divided into five parts

The first part aims to collect background information about the participants (items 1–2) where information about their educational background was investigated

In the second part, information about the purposes of the English language need will be included (items 3–7) (TSA) The researcher intended to grasp an idea about when and why pharmacy students need to learn English

As for the third part of the questionnaire, it focuses on students‟ present situation where items (8–15) asked students to reflect and rate their current proficiency in the English language (PSA) This curves the way for the researcher to determine students‟ lacks

The fourth category of questions is concerned with the identification of students‟ language needs, as well as their perceived level of interest (TSA) Items 16–31 covers the micro-skills regarding reading, writing, speaking, and listening, respectively (TSA)

The last part attempts to analyze students‟ pedagogic needs (PNA) The informants are asked about their preferred classroom activities and classroom interaction

(item 32-50) Items 51–51 focused on the role of the teacher and students in the classroom

In foreign language research, it is widely agreed among renowned scholars that a questionnaire is a suitable tool for data collection However, building a study solely on one data collection source seems to be insufficient for the research In this way, other methods should be implemented to enhance the reliability of the findings

3.3.2 Teachers’ interview

According to Duff (2008), “interviews are one of the richest sources of data” (p.134) In fact, interviews provide an insightful exploration of issues gained from interviews In order to fulfil the research purpose, structured interviews with ESP Teachers are included in the data collection process The interview aims to collect information about the practices of ESP teaching in HUP as well as teachers‟ perceptions

of students‟ English language needs

The interview questions are divided into four parts and adopted from Allouche (2012)‟s research with some modifications The first part attempts to elicit basic information of the participants, such as their qualification, their experience in teaching English in general, and ESP in particular Meanwhile, the second part is aimed to collect information about the syllabus design procedure at the university As for the third category of questions, it is concerned with the students, their perceived proficiency level and their strengths and weaknesses in the language by the teachers On the other hand, this part also asks for teachers‟ perception of students‟ language needs as well as their views on the degree of relevance of the course content to their students The last part of the interview stressed teachers‟ opinions about the current teaching ESP practices with its strengths and weaknesses and their suggestions to improve that situation

3.3.3 Students’ interview

The interview for students is semi-structured In a semi-structured interview, a written list of questions as a guide was used by the researcher to take more available information about the process (Mackey and Gass, 2005) The interview consists of two main parts

The first part concerns students‟ needs for the English language, the purposes for which they need English, the tasks they need to do in English Meanwhile, in the second part, questions focus on the participants‟ opinions on their current level of English and the problems they had in learning and using English in general and ESP in particular

3.4.1 Data collection

Initially, the researcher planned to directly distribute the questionnaires to the fourth-year pharmacy students at the university after their classes, so that the response rate can be optimized However, due to the outrage of Coronavirus, those procedures cannot be made as the government decides to shut universities down for months Therefore, as for convenience, in March 2020, the questionnaire copies were distributed online via Google form to 102 fourth-year pharmacy students Participation was voluntary and anonymous, with consent being sought from selected participants before they were allowed to complete the questionnaires After one week – time for pharmacy students to read and complete them, 74 filled-in questionnaires were returned (72.5% overall response rate)

Invitations for interviews were sent to 102 students and four lecturers via email Among all of them, four students and one lecturer replied and consented to participate in the interview process Because of the presence of the pandemic, face-to-face interaction

is limited, which leads to the fact that all interviews should be conducted via email Interviewing via email is suggested by Duff in 2008:

“Qualitative research interviews are normally conducted face to face, especially with L2 users, but if it is difficult to arrange meeting times or places, the telephone may provide a useful…substitute Audio equipment can be easily found to record the talk, if permission has been granted to do

so Increasingly, email exchanges or threaded discussions can also supplement or take the place of formal interviews, depending on their purpose.” (p.135)

Afterwards, all answers are translated into English and analyzed to identify recurring themes

3.4.2 Data analysis

As the research employed two methods quantitative and qualitative, there were two data analysis phases:

Quantitative data analysis

Quantitative data analysis was performed with the help of IBM SPSS Statistics (SPSS) software version 20 and Microsoft Office Excel 2013 After having collected 74 answers from the surveyed students, the researcher proceeded to conduct the coding process as a preparatory step before transferring received answers into SPSS for further analysis

As most of the questionnaire was designed with a Likert scale, those answers were coded as 1,2,3,4 and 5, respectively based on the Likert scale

In the end, descriptive aspects of findings were presented with the illustration of tables

Qualitative data analysis

As qualitative data accounts for a large part of the research, it required longer and more careful analysis In general, there were four main steps in analyzing qualitative data, which are as follows:

1 All the interviews were first translated into English, as they were all conducted

in Vietnamese

2 The researcher read individual transcripts in detail to obtain the overall ideas of each interview, followed by repetitive readings to spot significant themes Points were then underlined and noted on the margins For every point, associations with other transcripts and preliminary interpretations were noted

3 Emerging and recurring themes were identified after the researcher analyzed the margin notes Those themes were coded into short phrases

4 Finally, careful revision involved inclusion, exclusion, merging, or separation of themes was made

CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Results

The findings of the research are presented, as below:

4.1.1 To what extent are the perceived Pharmacy English language needs of

fourth-year students addressed in the course?

a Pharmacy English language needs perceived by fourth-year students

The concept of needs was analyzed on three aspects, namely: learners‟ determined purposes and intrinsic motivation for learning English, learners‟ perception of their lacks of language skills These aspects were mainly analyzed based on the data collected from questionnaires and interviews with pharmacy students, as below

self-The importance of English language

Regarding the importance of English in the pharmacist studies and future profession, almost all the respondents admitted that the mastery of English is essential and above for them As revealed by the statistic, a significant segment of 94.6% belonged

to students who think that English is critical to them In contrast, only one informant

rated the language as only „not important‟ and three rated as just “important” Statistically, the answers are as follows:

Table 1: Importance of the English language

Importance of the English

language

Absolute Frequencies

Students’ purposes of learning English

There are three targets of English learning which are given to the students in the questionnaire The three targets are English for Academic Purposes, English for Occupational Purposes and English for Communication Purposes

Table 2 Pharmacy Students’ Purposes of Learning English at university

Purposes of learning English at university Mea

6

9 N=74

As presented in Table 2, the participants shared the same thought that they mostly learn English because they want to advance in their future career, followed by the desire

to communicate in English This finding implies that pharmacy students consider English much more important as a part of their future professional life than a part of being a pharmacy student, which has been previously confirmed by the interviewees

There are several reasons why students prioritized the occupational purposes of learning English Firstly, it is believed by informants that English serves as a tool for them to advance in their careers because they need English to search and “understand scientific articles” To explain, student A addressed that as “there are few scientific publications written in Vietnamese.” This is later confirmed by Student B and student C when they both agreed that “English is an effective tool to develop and master specialized knowledge” Secondly, as all of the interviewees were planning to work for foreign laboratories after graduation‟ accordingly, they were reported to need English to compete during the recruitment process and later to communicate in the international working environment Student A said that “as there were not many pharmacy students equipped with a decent English level”, therefore having a good command of English will make them “shine like a star” during the recruitment process

Students’ self- perceived confidence over skills

Table 3 Pharmacy Students’ Perceived confidence over skills

.14 127

.00

1.159

.59

1.238

.12

1.11

.34

1.242

.61

1.214

.64

1.13

.95

1.121 N=74

Regarding self-perception about students‟ abilities related to the skills and aspects

of English, the data shows that most of them perceived their ability as ranked “Little confident” Among the eight skills asked, scientific vocabulary is the skill which students suffer from most, with the mean number standing at 1.95 From these numbers, it can be implied that pharmacy students perceived themselves as not good at any aspect of English skills

This has further been investigated in the interviews with students Notably, they all expressed serious concerns about their current status of lacking scientific vocabulary