Khó khăn của sinh viên đhnn trong việc tiếp cận thuật ngữ của khóa học tiếng anh kinh tế

Therefore, English for Specific Purposes ESP has been a promising branch in English Language Teaching.. The purpose of ESP course is to supply learners English language used in Economics

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

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

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN ĐHNN TRONG VIỆC TIẾP CẬN THUẬT NGỮ CỦA KHÓA HỌC TIẾNG ANH KINH TẾ

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Ms Cấn Thị Chang Duyên Sinh viên: Phạm Thị Xuân Quỳnh

Khoá: QH2008

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisors, Ms Can Thi Chang Duyen, M.A for her precious support and helpful instructions on the construction of my study, which have always been the decisive factors in the completion of this paper

Second, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks to the teachers in the ESP group, who have enthusiastically helped me to carry out the study with ease Moreover, my words of thanks are sent to students of FELTE for their participation in the data collection procedure

Furthermore, I would like to give my thanks to my teachers who have taught

me academic writing as well as research methodology, thanks to which I could overcome all the difficulties when working on the study

I also owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents, my family and my friends,

my roommate, particularly the whole 081.E20, who have constantly encouraged me during the time of conducting this research and have always been so helpful

Last but not least, I would like to extend my special thanks to the readers who spend their time reading and commenting on this study

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, with the development of globalization and economic integration, economics and the related issues have become one of the most-mentioned topics worldwide Therefore, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has been a promising branch in English Language Teaching The purpose of ESP course is to supply learners English language used in Economics, which typically presented by terminology While much effort focus has been put on translation of terminology, difficulties for linguistic students in learning economic terms have not been drawn full proper attention yet By highlighting the lack of related studies in the ESP setting in Vietnam, this paper is one among the first studies on the linguistic students‟ learning terminology through their difficulties, causes and solutions Thanks to a flexible combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, valid results can be yielded from the study Questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument to indentify the most common challenges in three processes of learning term including understanding, remembering, and applying 30 fourth-year students were chosen as the participants of the study They were classified into two groups which are double degree program students and mainstream students who major in English Language Teaching The reasons for their difficulties were categorized into internal causes, and external ones Solutions suggested by students and teachers were also provided in the thesis

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1.1.3 Differences from ESL ( English as a second language/ GE) 7

2.1.4 General understanding of approaching terminology 11

2.1.4.1 Three processes of approaching terminology 11 2.1.4.2 Main factors affecting the learning of terminology 12

CHAPTER 4: RESULT AND DISCUSSION

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

APPENDICES 48

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students

Appendix 2: Interview schedule for teachers

Appendix 3: Transcriptions of the interviews

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

List of figures

Figure 1 Types of ESP (Robinson, 1991:3-4)

Figure 2 Types of ESP (Hutchinson, 1987:16)

Figure 3 The overall importance of learning term in ESP course as evaluated by

Figure 6 Difficulty in facing different features of term in Group 1

Figure 7 Difficulty in facing different features of term in Group 2

Figure 8 Comparison between G1‟s and G2‟s opinion on reasons for difficulties in

understanding terms

Figure 9 Comparison between G1‟s and G2‟s evaluation on types of term hard to

remember

Figure 10 Causes of difficulties in remembering terms in Group 1

Figure 11 Causes of difficulties in remembering terms in Group 2

Figure 12 Causes of difficulties in applying term in Group 1, and Group 2

Figure 13 Solutions to the problems as suggested by students in Group 1, and Group 2

List of abbreviations

FELTE Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

ULIS, VNU University of Languages and International studies, Vietnam National

University (Hanoi)

ESP English for Specific Purposes

EFL English as a Foreign

ESL English as a Second Language

EAP English for Academic Purposes

EOP English for Occupational Purposes

To facilitate the integrating process, a global language – English is an efficient and indispensable means to seek the common voice among nations Therefore ,

learning English all over the world recently has been of great popularity As it has become increasingly aware that general English courses frequently which focus on grammar, structure do not meet learners‟ or employers‟ wants and needs English should be specified and intensive in certain fields Therefore, from the early 1960's, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to be one of the most prominent areas

of EFL teaching today With the globalization of trade and economy and the continuing increase of international communication in various fields, the demand for English for Specific Purposes is expanding, especially in countries where English is taught as a foreign language That is the true case in Vietnam; ESP has shown a slow but definite growth over the past few years Its development is reflected in an increasing number of courses offered to students Especially, increasing interest has been spurred since Vietnam opened its doors and recently entered WTO (2007) with a lot of well-paid job opportunities for English competent employees This has led to a rapid demand for English courses aimed at specific disciplines, e.g English for Economics, in place of the traditional 'General English' ones As one of the leading universities in language training, ULIS – VNU has applied English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course for the last 10 years, aiming at improving students‟ skill in using English as a tool to work in an international working environment and to comprehend technology transference The course has been applied for seniors whose English competence is upper-intermediate Their four skills: reading, listening, writing and speaking are nearly accomplished The course-book was written by Mr Nguyen Xuan Thom, a professor in ULIS This book consists of eight chapters; each chapter presents an economic topic The texts give general background on economics ‟ items and definitions Besides, reading texts are followed by different exercises related to the text The fist type of exercise is definitions matching; the second type is multiple choices on text information Translating exercises are also given to help students to apply the new knowledge The objectives of the course are providing students with a great deal of terminology, enhancing students‟ ability in translating economic

materials, building student‟s knowledge of grammar, etc The objectives to achieve are variable; however, the most desirable aim of students in learning and teachers in teaching this course is the acquisition of terminologies As stated in the data analysis

of Tran (2009) 70% teachers pay attention to teach terms, and 65% students want to learn terms in ESP course

Due to the fact that term really plays an essential role in distinguishing ESP from other language branches, and forming the ESP course As Robinson (1991 , p.4) claims “It may often be thought that a characteristic or even a critical feature of ESP is that a course should involve specialist language (especially terminology) and content”

However, the proper attention has not been paid to this issue; students encounter many difficulties in approaching terminology in the course, which could be considered a major motivation to this study

1.2 Aims and research questions

The study intends to detect the potential problems that ULIS students encounter, to reveal the causes for such difficulties, based on which the study would propose some possible suggestions and strategies for learning terms to answer the following questions:

1 According to ULIS students, what are the difficulties they encounter when approaching ESP‟s terminology?

2 What are the causes of the difficulties they encounter?

3 From the students‟ perspectives, what are the solutions to overcome the difficulties?

4 What are the solutions to student‟s problems as suggested by the teachers

of ESP?

1.3 Significance of the research

- Teachers, after going through this research will be more aware of the difficulties facing these students, and will be able to help them gradually overcome these difficulties

- For educational administrators, the study would provide them with a close view into the current situation, which may then reveal some pedagogical suggestio ns

- The findings hopefully would contribute to the improvement of students in learning terms

- Last but not least, with regards to researchers who have the same interest in the topic, could find fundamental, and useful information to develop their studies

1.4 Scope of the study

Although the topic of study was “Difficulties facing ULIS’s students in approaching terminology in English for Economics’ course”, in the scope the study, the researcher aimed at senior students in Faculty of English Language Teacher Education who had opportunities to learn ESP course in this semester Specifically, difficulties were on each different process of approaching terms such as understanding, remembering, and applying

1.5 Organization of the study

The rest of paper comprises five chapters as follows:

Chapter 2 (Literature review) lays the theoretical foundations for the whole study including the definition of key terms as well as a concise review of related studies

Chapter 3 (Methodology) elaborates on the research methods, participants, instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis methods

Chapter 4 (Results and Discussion) presents the results of the research and gives interpretation and analyses of major patterns found in data

Chapter 5 (Conclusion) summarizes the major findings and puts forward some pedagogical implications and recommendations

Summary

The chapter has provided the rationale for the study by stressing the importance of learning term in ESP course as well as disclosing the r esearch gap The

framework of the paper has also been elaborated on four research questions and clearly defined scope These elaborations have not only justified the major content and structure of the study but will also work as the guidelines for the rest of the paper

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Key concepts

2.1.1 ESP

2.1.1.1 What is ESP?

"ESP" stands for English for Specific Purposes Different authors have defined this term so far Some people described ESP as simply being the teaching of English for any purpose than could be specified Others, however, were more precise, describing it as the teaching of English used in academic studies or the teaching of English for vocational or professional purposes According to Hutchinson and Waters (1997), ESP is one important branch of EFL/ESL (English as a Foreign/Second Language) system that functions as the main branch of English language teaching ELT Specifically, Streven (1988, p.1) stated: "ESP is a particular case of the general category of special purpose language teaching"

Since its importance, much effort has been made to give an exact definition of ESP There are many scholars who have attempted to define it Instead of answering the question of what, many authors start with the question of “why ESP” as the approaching methods of Hutchinson and Waters (1997)

Why do learners need ESP? For which purpose do they learn ESP? The answer for these questions will be the foundation to build “the syllabus, materials, methodology, and evaluation procedures” explained by Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.74) Many of scholars share the common opinion on the learner‟s need elements of ESP Mackay and Mountford (1978) defined ESP as the teaching of English for clearly utilitarian purposes The purposes they refer to are defined by the needs of the learners, which could be academic, occupational, or scientific The opinion that student‟s need

is essential to determine ESP course also be emphasized by Munby (1978) Similarly, Robinson (1991, p.3) discussing the criteria to ESP, also agrees that a need analysis to find out exactly what students have to do is the foundation for ESP course

To sum up, ESP is “an approach rather than a product to language teaching”

(Hutchinson and Waters (1987)) which the focal point is on the learner‟s need, and

their reason for learning

2.1.1.2 Classification of ESP

ESP is traditionally divided into EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and

EOP (English for Occupational Purposes) Kennedy and Bolitho (1984, p.4) give

further explanations on the above types: "English for Occupational Purpose (EOP) is

taught in a situation in which learners need to use English as a part of their work or

profession", whereas, "English for Academic Purpose (EAP) is taught generally

within educational institutions to students needing English in their studies"

Robinson (1991) provides the distinction between these two areas as follows:

For study in a specific discipline In-study

EEP/ EAP Post- study

Independent

As school subject Integrated

Figure 1 Types of ESP (Robinson, 1991:3-4)

However, Hutchinson (1987) does not totally agree on this division, he argues

that there is “not a clear- cut distinction: people can work and study simultaneously

It is also likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study

environment will be used later when the student takes up, or returns a job"

Figure 2 Types of ESP (Hutchinson, 1987:16)

On Hutchinson' ELT tree, there are three categories basing on nature of the learners' specialism: English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economic (EBE) and English for the Social Science (ESS) Though ESP is classified by different authors, they are common that ESP can be divided into EAP and EOP

On the first classification, our ESP course is taught as an independent school subject, in the branch of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) Students learn English by ESP‟s course to enhance their using English ability in different fields To

-be more specific, the second tree indicates that “English for Economics” is a branch of EBE

sub-Regarding ESP‟s course in ULIS, researchers found out that it was tough as an independent school subject, and in the branch of English for Academic Purposes 2.1.1.3 Differences from ESL (English as a second language/ GE):

The above definitions have shown how broad ESP really is In fact, one may ask „What is the difference between the ESP and GE approach?‟ Hutchinson et al (1987, p.53) answer this quite simply, “in theory nothing, in practice a great deal”

The most important difference lies in the learners and their purposes for learning English ESP students are usually adults who already have some acquaintance

with English and are learning the language in order to communicate a set of professional skills and to perform particular job-related functions

ESP concentrates more on language in context than on teaching grammar and language structures It covers subjects varying from accounting or banking, to economics The ESP focal point is that English is not taught as a subject separated from the students' real world (or wishes); instead, it is integrated into a subject matter area important to the learners

In conclusion, English for Specific/Special Purposes (ESP) and General English (GE) are the two branches of English Language Teaching (ELT) The main difference between ESP and GE lies in the awareness of a need ESP learners aware their need; they know what exactly they need English for; they know what the ESP course should offer them (Hutchinson and Waters (1987))

2.1.2 ESP course in ULIS

The project of launching ESP course was first initiated by the Head-master of ULIS- Professor Nguyễn Đức Chính He assigned Prof Nguyen Xuan Thom who is a linguistics expert, and also has deep specialized knowledge in economics to compose the book Receiving support from the Dean of English Faculty, the textbook was first introduced in 1996

ESP was a new branch in ELT although it did not have a long-term history as ELT; however, learning ESP was a need in the context of globalization ULIS‟s teachers with a long-term vision recognized the importance of the ESP branch, which could be the motivation to form the very first ESP sector in ULIS Moreover, ULIS became the first university in Vietnam launching ESP course The ESP textbooks of ULIS were very first ESP material composed by Vietnamese professor to serve studying purpose Professor Nguyễn Đức Chính , a principal of ULIS at that time intended to compile textbooks for 19 different branches of ESP to teach in ULIS Except the English for Economics, and English for Finance and Banking, all other ESP textbooks which encountered the difficulty in composing process, or in the piloting

period, cannot exist till today It can be proved that English for Economics and English for Finance and Banking were tested in reality, and proved to be effective

Today, the textbooks “English for Economics”, and “English for Finance and Banking” are widely used in ULIS, and also become learning material for many other universities

2.1.3 Terminology

2.1.3.1 Definitions

There are various definitions of terminology by many linguists According to

Oxford dictionary, term is “a word or phrase used to describe a thing or to express a

concept, especially in a particular kind of language or branch of study” The meaning

of terminology can only be precisely understood when putting in a specific area The specialization and restriction on terminology‟s expression also be stated on Russian Encyclopedia (1976)

This definition has many features in common with those approached by many Vietnamese linguists such as the one proposed by Nguyen (1960, p:176),

“Terminology is a word or combination of words that is used in science, technology politics, art… and it has a specific meaning, denotes precise concepts and names of the above-mentioned scientific areas” Do (1998) claims “Terms are specialist words used within a scientific field, a profession or any technological field” According to Nguyen (1981), “Terminology is a section of special lexis of a language It consists of fixed words and groups of words which are accurate names of concepts and subjects belonging to different specialized fields of human beings”

The common point in these definitions is that “terminology is special linguistic units in a specific area”

2.1.3.2 Characteristics Some main characteristics of terminology have been given by many linguists,

these are: accuracy, systematicity and internationality

- Accurateness: Terms are often used in highly logic-required fields such as:

economic, science, law, medicine, etc; therefore, terms are required to be accurate Each specific field requires its own terms, terms play the role of codes among users to convey and understand the things, the phenomenon, and the event in the areas In General English synonymy and homophone which are regarded as diversity of language, are considered as ambiguity in ESP sphere and should be highly avoided

An example to illustrate: “cash book” which has the equivalent as “sổ tiền mặt”, or the term “invoice” with a sole translated version as “hóa đơn”

- Systematism: Languge is science which also has its own system Terminology is a

language element, therefore it must be systematic When terms are put together in different systems and context, they convey one specific concept Some terms can appear in some different fields; hence, the systematism of term should be highly considered to understand precisely and correctly the meaning of term The ignorance

on this relation will lead to the ambiguity for the term

- Internationalism: As mentioned above, terms are special words expressing common

scientific concepts Together with the growth of globalization, terms are internationalized

Besides these above main features, terminology also acquires other features related

to its culture Thus, terminology in Vietnamese is not an exception; according to Hoang (2005) they are nationalism and popularity

- Nationalism: is another core feature of terminology Terminology is not only used in

specific profession but it is also used in regional/ national area As a result, the cultures and characteristics of Vietnamese language will have an effect on the terminologies, so “the term should be appropriate to Vietnamese people from the lexicology to the grammatical composition” stated by Hoang (2007)

- Popularity: Language is a means of communication which conveys the ideas,

thinking, etc among people Terms also contributes to this value of language Needless to say, term plays an important role in spreading scientific and technological

knowledge to all people The more popular, and understandable a term is, the more useful a term is for language learning

In summary, the general features of terminology have been reviewed

2.1.3.4 The distinction between terms and words

The distinction between terminology and ordinary words is important to foster the understanding on special features of terms Baker (1998) claims that “Terms differ from words in that they are endowed with a special form of reference, namely that they refer to discrete conceptual entities, properties, activities or relations which constitute the knowledge space of a particular subject field.”

When a term is placed in a specific context, its meaning will be in the relationship with other terms in its system A term only functions in a unique reference, meanwhile words function in general reference or a variety of subject fiel ds

However, the distinction sometimes disappears when terms are used frequently, became popular and familiar to people In other case ordinary words become terms Hoang (2005)

For example: money (tiền) is an economic terminology which is widely understood by outsiders

2.1.4 General understanding of approaching terminology

In this study researcher equated “approaching terminology” with “learning terminology” To learn a word in general or a term in particular, learners have to go through three continuous processes, which will be presented below

2.1.4.1 Three processes of approaching terminology or word in general

Specifically, approaching is the learner‟s capacity to perceive, remember and apply words to communicate To learn a word, minimally it must be recognized as a word and enter it into our metal process According to Nation (2001), vocabulary

acquisition includes three processes, namely noticing, retrieval, and creative (generative) use Terminology is one element on vocabulary, so learning terminology

certainly imbued with these three processes In other words, there is no single process

of learning terminologies

Namely noticing is the very first process, involving learner‟s detection of a given terminology Learner may face unknown words or realize he/she has come across the word before, but it is used differently, in a new context Leaner starts to consider the word to understand it In this process, the learne r need the explanation of the term, its translation, a synonym, or target language definition to provide foundation

to understand the term Some types of terms which may be easier to explain as concrete terms, while conceptual or abstract term are more difficult to understand

The retrieval, the second process of vocabulary acquisition distinguished by Nation, reinforces the meaning of the term in the learner‟s mind A term will imprint deeper in the learner‟s memory providing the term is frequently repeated The more students practice, the more they learn

The last process of vocabulary acquisition in Nation‟s classification is that of the creative or generative use It takes place when “previously met words are subsequently met or used in ways that differ from the previous meeting with the word” In other words, this process reflects the learner‟s ability recall the term and use term in appropriate situation and context

It is necessary to reemphasize the indispensability of each process to approach a term Without understanding terms, learner cannot successfully remember terms; consequently, s/he has no chance to apply terms Especially, terminologies of economics as a professional field, involving intensive research and frequent reading in order to understand the layers of each term and how they can be applied in the context Rotten learning without any attempt to use the word may lead to confusion and the forgetting of the word

2.1.4.2 Main factors affect the learning

In the process of learning, there are different factors that play a significant role towards making it a smooth, pleasurable and constructive process As Oxford and

Nykios (1989) noted that the existence of interaction between learner‟s internal factors and external variables might be reasons for difficulties encountering learners Williams and Burden's (1997) also agreed with this classification and outlined four aspects of

the teaching-learning process, i.e., teachers, learners, tasks, contexts; in which

learner is the internal factors, while teachers, tasks, contexts are external factors

Belonging to learner him/herself (e.g., attitudes, motivation, and prior knowledge), these elements can cause different difficulties If students are motivated

to learn to their benefits such as expanding knowledge, seeking better job, etc, they will feel more interested in learning, then they will mentally prepare themselves to learn more about this new knowledge, or subjects In this case learning becomes an incentive Besides, student‟s awareness of their role in learning will help them have a right attitude in learning Motivation is an internal drive which encourages and energizes students to achieve their goals In this case, students will be actively involved in their education The saying goes: you can bring the horse to water, but you cannot make him drink In language teaching, teachers can provide all the necessary circumstances and inputs, but the leaning can only happen if learners are willing to contribute Prior knowledge can be understood as what people already know about the topic, commonly named as “background knowledge” Students who have a great deal

of background knowledge in a given subject area are likely to learn new information readily and quite well

In term of learning task (e.g., type, complexity, difficulty, and generality) these elements should be considered to figure out the difficulties; and the learning environment (e.g., the learning culture, the richness of input and output opportunities) also contributes to learning process The learners who have more term production opportunities may be relatively likely to master new terms more quickly

The last factor- teachers are considered to be playing an important role for learner‟s language acquisition because they educate and familiarize the students with knowledge of language They are held responsible for bridging theories and practices

together in the classroom (Lawrence 2000) Furthermore, Wright (1987) believed that

a teacher performs multiple roles such as an instructor, a manager, a counselor, a facilitator, an organizer, and evaluator, a curriculum developer, a material writer and even a friend Therefore, teacher‟s teaching style will create certain impact on students‟ learning While teachers‟ personality, educational background, and professional experiences in life usually have a powerful influence on the development

of their teaching style as explained by Borg (1999), hence, these personal elements should be considered in this study

background knowledge, reading skills This research will be conducted on different

population; therefore, it will give different results Besides, these problems can be least challenging for ULIS students because their main major is English At this semester, ULIS‟s students expected to be at upper-intermediate level in using English language

In addition, most of the pre-researches paid attention to reading skill, and found out the highest concerned matter in ESP course is terminology acquisition It seems that terminology is an attracting topic which received much attention from many writers which can be named but a few, Tran (2001) with “Translation of term in accounting documents”, Pham (2003) with “Translation of term in stock market”, Tran (2002) with “Translation of insurance terminology”, Tran (2005) with “Translation of medical term”, or Tran (2006) with “Transalation of auditing terminology” However, the researcher found no studies on the same issue conducted in the ESP setting in ULIS This obviously offers a gap for the researcher to carry out the study The present study hopes to bridge the gap by providing a specific and detailed look at the third-year ULIS students, finding out the difficulties arisen, causes and proposing some suggestions to improve the approaching of terminology

Summary

The chapter has provide theoretical background for the whole paper through elaboration on the key words “ESP” and “approaching terminology” , and the context of studying ESP’s course of senior students in ULIS The review of a number of related studies in this chapter has revealed a research gap which the researcher is pursuing to bridge through this study

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOG Y

3.1 Setting of the study

The study will be carried out among forth year students at FELTE, ULIS, VNU There are 22 classes from 08E1 to 08E23 with nearly 600 forth-year students in two majors That is, from E1 to E17, and E21, E22 are classes of English language teacher education, which accounts for high percentage of students Classes E18 to E20 are for students who would like to be translators and interpreters, who make up for a small percentage of students in the total number of the final year ones

This research only involved students from classes whose major is English language teacher, and some of ESP‟s teachers In this research, the term “ULIS‟s students” would be understood as seniors from English Language Teaching Education major only

Seniors from ELTE major were chosen due to two reasons: 1) they account for the majority of ULIS students, the difficulties they enc ountered would be great concern to both the university authority and teachers to better training quality; 2) Also solutions which were suggested at the end of the study be more useful for more students

At the time of study, the students are in the final term of school year In this last semester, students should spend 9 weeks instead of 15 weeks for each subject because

6 weeks in the semester is spent on internship Also, they have 9 weeks for ESP‟s course They have to study 5 periods a week instead of 3 periods to complete the ESP course in a shorter term (9 weeks), the intensive curriculum certainly put pressure on students Before attending practicum, students will spend 4 weeks for this subject, and then they will finish 5 last weeks after practicum The course is quite short and intensive In addition, the disruption of the course also contributes to the difficulty for students in learning

3.2 Participants

3.2.1 Seniors from FELTE

As the main focus of the research, forth year ULIS students played a vital role

in contributing to the success of the study Seventeen classes were those who have chance to study English for Economics‟ course in this semester; therefore, the number

of students was quite large nearly 500 students The population was just too large that

it was impossible to include every individual This was the reason why the researcher decided to choose 30 of them to involve in the survey This number, to some extent, well represents the population of FELTE These 30 students were chosen via convenience sampling This sampling technique was chosen because it is fast, inexpensive, and easy and the subjects were readily available

The researcher distributed 20 questionnaires via email, and came to class directly handled 50 questionnaires The total valid respondents were 60; however, the researcher did not analyze all these respondents, randomly picked up 30 among them

30 students were classified into two groups The first group (G1) included those students who studied only a major of language While the second group (G2) contained those students who studied double majors (language and economics at the same time) Students from G2 were supposed to have better economic background, as

in their curriculum they certainly attended more economic courses than G1‟s students 3.2.2 Teachers of ESP

It is highly demanding to be an ESP teacher, teacher must be not only excellent at knowledge of language but also good at economic professional knowledge There are seven teachers in ESP division in ULIS All of those teachers received M.A or B.A in Economics besides their M.A or PhD in linguistics It can be concluded that they are competent at teaching ESP

Due to the limited time and access, two teachers were chosen to be interviewed, who are directly teaching ESP to forth-year students in FELTE The reason is that those teachers clearly understand the state of learning, the students‟ performances in-class and thus can propose some recommendations for the students to overcome the difficulties One teacher who is highly experienced has been teaching

ESP for more than fifteen years The other has just been transferred to ESP division The researcher expected to collect useful, practical solutions from an experienced teacher, and fresh, innovative solutions from a new one

3.3 Data collection instruments

Both the quantitative and the qualitative methods were utilized in this study because these approaches are regarded by Mackey and Gass (2005) as

“complementary means of investigating the complex phenomena at work in second language acquisition” (p.164) Accordingly, it employs questionnaires, and interviews

as the instruments to collect data These two instruments aim at finding answers to the research questions, and supplement each other in collecting data

3.3.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires, as defined by Brown (2001, cited in Mackey and Gass, 2005,

p.92), are “any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions

or statements to which they are to react by writing out their answers or selecting them among existing answers”

Since questionnaire can “provide data economically and in a form that lends itself perfectly to the purposes of the study” (Verma & Mallick, 1999:17), it is taken as

one of the main data collection instruments in the research Another reason for researcher‟s choice is that this instrument has the ability to reveal a pattern among all the respondents‟ answers (Gillham, 2005:166) The questionnaire designed for students aimed to find out the following main points:

 Their encountered problems when approaching terms

 Their perceived reasons for above difficulties

 Their suggestions to overcome difficulties

Multiple-choice format is preferably employed in order to create a friendly feeling and helpful guidance for participants Because multiple choice questions were highly structured, they are useful to calculate frequencies of response One more

reason for using this type of question for students was that normally, students were lazy at reading and writing long answers, and they preferred multiple-choice questions

Besides multiple-choice questions, the survey questionnaires also makes use

of questions which asks the respondents to score a statement according to five-point

scale (Extremely important, very important, somewhat important, not very important, not important at all) which is adopted to reveal the participants‟ perception of the

importance of learning terms, and terms in their future jobs The other questions were divided into three groups to answer the difficulties and reasons in each process of approaching terms, namely understanding, remembering, and applying process The items for some questions were purposefully designed based on characteristics of terms

to identify which type of term would be the most striking obstacle for learners These other questions concerned with the reasons based on internal and external factors such

as learners, teachers, tasks, textbook, etc In the last question, the researcher tried to list out all available and possible solutions which students may use to overcome those difficulties Besides, some other questions concerning their education are also utilized

to support the study

3.3.2 Interviews

Along with survey questionnaire, interview is also chosen by the researcher as

a valuable research instrument to examine the target population Vaus (2002) asserted

that “in-depth interviewing can give the researcher insight into the meaning of behavior and attitudes expressed in questionnaires This can help made more intelligent interpretations of the patterns discovered in the analysis of questionnaire data” A semi-structured interview will be exploited as this type of interviews could

bring about in-depth information and a wide range of responses from the interviewees (Hancock 1998) Based on the findings from the questionnaires, the interviews will be conducted for teachers

3.4 Procedure of data collection

The procedure of collecting data could be divided into three main phases

- Phase 1: The initial phase is designing student survey questionnaire and interview schedules for teachers In any method applied, personal information of all participants was ensured to be kept confidential and anonymous The first draft of the questionnaire was designed based on theoretical background and the researcher‟s assumption, in comprehensible English After the questionnaire had been adjusted, the official questionnaires were finalized and ready to be distributed The researcher picked up a small size of population; therefore, the process of data collection occurred fairly conveniently and quickly in nearly two weeks

- Phase 2: Finally, after processing data collected from questionnaires, the researcher switched to the next step, which was designing interview checklist The results found out in the questionnaires would reveal the difficulties for students in approaching terms Teacher‟s checklist interviews were purposefully designed to facilitate teacher

to propose recommendations to solve those difficulties

- Phase 3: Semi-structured interviews for teachers were conducted in this phase after the researcher got the permission from them Interviews were also successfully conducted thanks to the teacher‟s highly supportive attitudes and assistance

3.5 Procedure of data analysis

Firstly, responses from questionnaire were calculated into numerical form Descriptive statistics were used to display the findings from the survey Secondly, the collected data were classified corresponding with the research questions

Since the fact that almost all the data drawn from questionnaires were numerical statistics, these data were put in categories based on the literature review and then principally transferred to percentages illustrated in charts for the researcher to examine and comment more easily

Data collected from interviews were also summarized as a supportive source of data to answer question 9 The researcher with the hope that it would help provide some possible solutions for difficulties encountering students

Summary

This chapter has justified the methodology of the study by elaborating on the participants including the teachers and forth -year ULIS students as well as the data collection method Clarification has also been given to the data analysis methods and process The presentation and interpretation of findings from such analysis are going

to be made clear in the next chapter

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISSCUSSION

In the previous chapter, the methodology applied to conduct this study has been presented with descriptions and justifications of the choice of participants, research instruments as well as the process of data collection and data analysis In this chapter, all the collected data will be analyzed and discussed according to 9 survey questions respectively Charts and graphs are made use of for better presentation and elaboration

4.1 Findings

Before the findings are presented, a glance at the students‟ perception towards

the overall importance of learning term would reveal their motivation and attitude to learn

Question 1: How do you evaluate the importance of learning terminology in English for Economics course?

Figure 3 The overall importance of learning term in ESP course as evaluated by students

It was very clearly seen from the collected data, high percentages of students in both groups admitted that learning terminology is very important, acc ounting for 60% and 67% in G1, and G2 respectively 13% of students in Group 1 considered learning term extremely important, while this number was 33 % (nearly triple) in Group 2 Very small number of students in G1 supposed that learning term was somewhat important, and not very important No participants in G2 negated the essence of terminology learning Which means in general, most of the students were aware of the importance of learning term, however G2 evaluated learning term more necessarily than G1 did

When interviewed, teacher B asserted that learning term was one of the most important purposes in this course He explained that the aim of the course was not to train students to be economic experts The aim of the short course just introduces general knowledge as well as basic terms in Economics to students In term of grammar, there is no difference compared to other subjects, the most outstanding difference was terminologies His opinion was echoed by the teacher A Specifically, teacher A evaluated learning terms to be very important He supposed that learning terms was similar to learning vocabulary A learner who lacked in grammar knowledge would be hard to explain his opinions sufficiently, but without vocabulary one can explain nothing He quoted “Without vocabulary you can say nothing”

Question 2: How do you evaluate the usefulness of learning termino logy in this course for your future job?

Figure 4 The evaluation of students on the usefulness of learning term for their future job

As can be seen from the pie charts, these 2 groups evaluated the importance of learning terms for their future job differently

G1‟s students are trained to be English teachers, 13% of whom considered learning term not very important to their future career Some of them, which accounts for 27% found that learning term was important to some extends However, a greater number of them (53%) thought that learning terms was very important to their future jobs ESP courses have just appeared in Vietnam since 90s Thanks to the development

of economy, the demand for English teachers for economics also increases In addition, as teacher A shared that regarding to students who are trained to be teachers, learning terms is still important to their future job, because a vast amount of updated information daily is in economic area, so undoubtedly terms become a necessary instrument to acquire knowledge outside Students who do not know terms would be difficult to access the source of economic news More than half of G1‟s students might be aware of this issue, and they more concern in learning terms Even 13% of