VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* LÊ THU TRANG AN EVALUATION OF THE ESP MATERIALS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING, HÀ HOA TIÊN UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ADAPTATION Đánh giá giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dành cho sinh viên năm thứ hai khoa Tài chính Kế toán trường Đại học Hà Hoa Tiên, Hà Nam và đề xuất hiệu chỉnh giáo trình M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* LÊ THU TRANG AN EVALUATION OF THE ESP MATERIALS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING, HÀ HOA TIÊN UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ADAPTATION Đánh giá giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dành cho sinh viên năm thứ hai khoa Tài chính Kế toán trường Đại học Hà Hoa Tiên, Hà Nam và đề xuất hiệu chỉnh giáo trình M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: Dr. TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN Hanoi, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify my authority of the submitted minor thesis entitled “An evaluation of the ESP materials for the 2nd year students of Faculty of Financial Accounting, Hà Hoa Tiên University in Hà Nam and suggestions for adaptation”, in terms of statement of requirement for the thesis and the field study reports in Masters‟ programs, is the result of my own work, except where otherwise acknowledged and that this minor thesis or any part of the same had not been submitted for a higher degree to any other universities or institutions. Hanoi, August 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT On the completion of this thesis, I would like to give my sincere thanks to many people for their encouragement and assistance during the preparation of my thesis. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Trần Thị Thu Hiền, who has been most willing and ready to give me valuable and helpful guidance, advice and support during the most difficult time of thesis construction. Without her help, this thesis would not have been made possible. My special thanks also go to all the teachers in the English Department, at Hà Hoa Tiên University for their enthusiastic participation and constructive suggestions for the development of the study. And I also wish to express my thanks for the great cooperation from the second year accounting students of the Faculty of Financial Accounting and the graduated ones in the data collection of my study.
My gratitude also extends to my lecturers for their interesting and helpful lessons during of working towards my master‟s degree. Last but not least, my sincere thanks go to my family who give me much motivation, energy and support in accomplishing this challenging work. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iii ABSTRACT Coursebook evaluation is of great importance in assessing how effective a coursebook is to the teaching and learning of foreign languages. The thesis is carried out in an attempt to evaluate the suitability of the coursebook “English for Finance” (Cao Xuân Thiề u, 2008, Publisher of Finance) for the second year students of financial accounting at Hà Hoa Tiên University, in Hà Nam to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology.
The study makes use of survey research approach with data collection instruments of questionnaires in form of Likert rating scale type, informal interviews, and with the involvement of 69 informants. Type of summative evaluation was chosen to seek for significant improvements for subsequent use. The findings points out that the coursebook is partially suitable to the course‟s objectives and would be subsequently used for incoming ESP courses at the university. However, seeking for effectively and completely obtaining given objectives of the course, there should be necessary improvements to be made with the coursebook in terms of language components, reading topics, types of exercises and tasks, guidance and suggestion for further study and practice as recommended in the study.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS .vii LIST OF TABLES .viii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study.
Significance of the study. Design of the study. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 ESP course evaluation .1 What is meant by evaluation?.2 Why should the evaluation be carried out? .3 When should the evaluation be occurred? .4 How can the evaluation be carried out? .5 Who should be involved in the evaluation .2 Materials, coursebook and textbook .1 Definition and principles of materials adaptation .2 Materials adaptation techniques. 10 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 Context of the study.
11 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 The ESP course .2 The ESP coursebook .3 Other ESP materials resources .1 Data collection instruments .2 Data collection procedures .1 For the questionnaire.2 For the informal interviews .3 Data analysis procedures. 15 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS .1 In terms of aims .2 In terms of contents .3 In terms of methodology .3 Findings and discussions .1 Suitability of the coursebook in terms of aims .2 Suitability of the coursebook in terms of contents .3 Suitability of the coursebook in terms of methodology .4 Recommendations for the coursebook’s adaptation.1 In terms of aims .2 In terms of contents .3 In terms of methodology. Limitations of the study. 29 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Suggestions for further study. XV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS EGP: English for general purposes ESP: English for specific purposes FOFA: Faculty of Financial Accounting HHT: Hà Hoa Tiên University VNU-ULIS: Vietnam National University – University of Languages and International Studies LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Statistics on the 2nd year students‟ opinions on the coursebook in terms of aims Table 2: Statistics on the 13 graduated students‟ opinions towards the statement 1 (appendix 1) Table 3: Statistics on the graduated students‟ opinions toward statements 4 and 5 (appendix 1) Table 4: Statistics on the 13 graduated students‟ opinions towards the statement 6 (appendix 1) Table 5: Statistics on the 53 second year students‟ opinions towards the statement 6 (appendix 2) Table 6: Statistics on the 13 second year students‟ opinions towards the statements 7 and 8 (appendix 1) Table 7: Statistics on the 2nd year students‟ opinions toward statements 7 and 8 (appendix 2) Table 8: Statistics on the 53 second year students‟ opinions towards the statement 9 (appendix 2) Table 9: Statistics on the 2nd year students‟ opinions toward statements 10 and 11 (appendix 2) LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the article “Today‟s students‟ gaps in English for specific purposes” on the Labor newspaper, the director of Petech Corporation said that a number of today‟s young employees were not good at English for specific purposes and they were unable to get promoted in their jobs. He mentioned inappropriate trainings in ESP as the main reason for the fact that lots of them were unable to read English specialized documents, or to translate their transaction documents from Vietnamese to English and vice versa, causing backwardness in their jobs.
In another article (Mạnh Trường, 2014), the manager of human resources of Panasonic System Networks Vietnam Company stated that knowledge of ESP was a great barrier of many Vietnamese graduated students in career promotion, especially at enterprises with foreign direct investment. The mentioned above facts raise out a question for educational institutions and educators that whether or not the ESP training programs they offer are suitable for their students and manage to skill them up to today‟s increasingly demanding employment requirements. More importantly, as cited by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 13), it is really necessary for ESP practitioners to follow up with their students after the course in order to assess whether the students have been able to make use of what they learned and to find out what they were not prepared for. Since the establishment of HHT University‟s Faculty of English Language in 2007, the faculty‟s teaching staff has compiled some ESP coursebooks, including one for Financial Accounting, as materials for the ESP teaching and learning at the university.
The ESP coursebook for the 2nd year students of Financial Accounting was brought into use in 2009 with the aims of providing the students with English vocabulary relevant to their major and skills marketable for their future employment. However, whether or not the cousebook is suitable to the course syllabus is still of a great concern by the university‟s management board and ESP teachers. This study on the ESP coursebook evaluation is therefore an effort to help them deal with this concern. Aims of the study The study aims to assess how suitable is the coursebook “English for Finance” (Cao Xuân Thiề u, 2008) used for the second year students of financial accounting at Hà LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 Hoa Tiên University to the course‟ objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology.
It also aims to offer some recommendations for further improvements of the coursebook seeking for subsequent uses for in-coming courses at the university. After all, it is carried out in an attempt to help the university‟s management board to deal with its common concern about how well its university‟s students of financial accounting have been prepared for their future employment with the ESP and whether or not they can use what they have learned from the course. Scope of the study There are many criteria to be taken into consideration when evaluating the coursebook, such as audience, physical appearance, needs, and so on. However, the study only focuses on a summative evaluation on the suitability of the coursebook‟s aims, contents, and methodology to the course‟s objectives.
Research question This study is going to deal with the university‟s common concern about if the university‟s graduated students of financial accounting are able to use what they have learned with the ESP course and what they have been not prepared for. Thus, the research question to be answered is: “How suitable is the ESP coursebook for the 2nd year students of Financial Accounting at Hà Hoa Tiên University to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology?”. Research method The study follows a survey research approach. The research question was addressed by using both quantitative and qualitative data.
A survey questionnaire was used to collect the needed data, and aimed at exploring the opinions and attitudes of the on-studying students and graduate ones. Besides, informal interview questions with the three ESP teachers were also used for better understanding of the participants, as well as their learning condition. Significance of the study The results of this study will benefit the students, the ESP teachers, then the university administrators. This study is significant because it will provide valuable facts about the students and teachers‟ needs, attitude and opinions over the in-use ESP material.
The ESP teachers will better understand the difficulties and strength in using the material LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 thereby reconstructing their lessons, in terms of aims, contents, and methodology, to obtain the course‟s objectives and to well prepare the students for their future jobs. This study will serve as the basis for future plans of action by the university administrators with regards to the necessary actions for any investments in ESP teaching materials. Furthermore, it will join a common effort in providing stimuli for further studies of the same nature.