VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* ĐẶNG THỊ MINH HUỆ AN EVALUATION OF THE ESP COURSE FOR THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS AND TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE. Đánh giá một khóa học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên năm 3 tại trường Cao đẳng Công nghệ và Kinh tế Công nghiệp .A MINOR PROGAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111. Hanoi, 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* ĐẶNG THỊ MINH HUỆ AN EVALUATION OF THE ESP COURSE FOR THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS AND TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE. Đánh giá một khóa học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên năm 3 tại trường Cao đẳng Công nghệ và Kinh tế Công nghiệp .A MINOR PROGAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: DƯƠNG THU MAI, PhD.
Hanoi, 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that this thesis is entirely my own work. I have provided fully documented references to the others' work. The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course. I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library.
Thai Nguyen, September, 2014 Dang Thi Minh Hue i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all who have helped me in the completion of this thesis. Firstly, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Duong Thu Mai, Ph.D for her valuable guidance, useful suggestions, kind encouragement while I was doing my research. Secondly, many thanks also go to my classmates in K21- University of Languages & International Studies- VNU, Hanoi for their support, and suggestions during the thesis. Thirdly, I am grateful to my colleagues and students at Accountancy Faculty at Industrial Economics and Technology College for their willingness to participate in the research without whose support I could not complete this project.
Last but not least, a special note of appreciation goes to family who always supported me with their sympathy and encouragement to complete this study. Thai Nguyen, September 2014 Đặng Thị Minh Huệ ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Course evaluation in light of learner-centered teaching approach is found to be significantly important at Industrial Economics and Technology College where no evaluation of the ESP course has been conducted. This study attempts to evaluate the Business and Economics course in the 4 aspects: Function of content, roles of the instructor, responsibilities for learning, and processes and purposes of assessment in the perspective of students and teachers. To fulfill such objectives, the study employed the instruments of questionnaires and interviews administered for 80 students and 09 English teachers respectively.
The data collected from the questionnaires was analyzed in graphs, tables, charts meanwhile information collected from the interview was summarized interpretively. After comparing the data collected from students and teachers, inferences were made regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the course. The findings show that purposes and processes of assessment were done well, some parts in responsibilities for learning and roles of the instructor should be strengthened, content of the course should be reconsidered about amount of knowledge. Finally, some recommendations for improving the course's effectiveness were introduced.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES .viii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Aims and objectives of the study.
Scope of the study. Methods of the study. 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.1 English for Specific Purposes (ESP).1 Definitions on English Specific Purposes .2 Characteristics of ESP courses .3 The approach in teaching ESP .1 What is Course Evaluation? .2 The importance of course evaluation .3 The framework used for evaluation .1 The practical background of the study. 24 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Data collection instrument .2 Data collection procedure.3 Data presentation and analysis procedure.
28 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Course evaluation in terms of learner-centeredness from the perspective of students. Function of content. Role of the teacher .3 Responsibility for learning. Purposes and processes of assessment .2 Course evaluation in terms of learner-centeredness from the perspective of teachers .1 Function of content .2 Role of the teacher .3 Responsibilities for learning .4 Purposes and processes of assessment .1 Function of the content.2 Roles of the teacher .3 Responsibilities of the learner .4 Purposes and processes of assessment.
Summary of findings and discussions. Suggestions for further research. 50 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESP: English for Specific Purposes IETC: Industrial Economics and Technology College.
vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Comparison of Teacher-learner teaching and Learner-centered teaching on five key elements (Saulnier et al.2: The rubric role for the role of the instructor dimension of learner-centered Teaching (Blumberg P.1: Strengths and weaknesses of the ESP course LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Students' evaluation of the course's content.2: Student's evaluation of the teacher's role Figure 3.3: Students' evaluation on their learning responsibility Figure 3.4: Students' evaluation on the opportunities to develop self and peer assessment skills.5: Students' evaluation on enhancing their potential to promote learning by many assessments.6: Students' satisfaction about the course's content of the ESP course Figure 3.7: Students' satisfaction about the role of teacher in the ESP course Figure 3.8: Students' satisfaction about responsibilities for learning Figure 3.9: Students' satisfaction about the purposes and processes of the assessment. viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study With the globalization of trade and economy and the continuing increase of international communication in various fields, the demand for English for Specific Purpose is increasingly expanding, especially in universities and colleges where they desire to provide their students some line knowledge. Then, English-teaching teachers are required to design ESP courses.
The core components of an ESP course include needs analysis, course goal and objectives; materials design and finally assessment and evaluation, which must be developed from the learner's targets, needs, abilities, situation,. Evaluation of an ESP course is especially important. Evaluation is defined as "a whole process which begins with determining what information to gather and ends with bringing about change in current activities or influencing future ones" (Evans, 1998, p. Evaluation could be performed in any fields, any projects because it could help the insiders and outsiders understand how the thing is and give out improvement or innovation where it is needed.
It is essential in our daily life, in education also. With learners, it is to judge, make comments on the teaching and learning activity to adjust their own learning. Addition to that, "evaluation of the learners is unlikely to indicate exactly where a fault lies, but it will at least indicate the existence of a fault somewhere" (Hitchinson and Waters, 1987, p. With teachers, they need evaluation "because it can provide a wealth of information to use for the future direction of classroom practice, for the planning of the courses, and for the management of learning tasks and students" for to “confirm the validity of the classroom practice” when any partial elements of the course are satisfactory and “form a basis” for changes when they are not" (Germaine et al.
Among many frameworks which could be used for course evaluation, this study used the learner-centered teaching approach which has been increasingly appreciated highly in education in Vietnam. In addition, it is one of the most 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com appropriate frameworks for evaluating an ESP course when with an ESP course, the core element is the learners who are "active participant in learning and co- constructors of knowledge" (Meece, 2003). In other words, in a learner-centered course, it is the learner who must be responsible for their learning, the instructor just acts as a mentor and an advisor to encourage students' participation in active learning. Interactions between the instructor and their students facilitate the learning process through discovery, inquiry and problem solving (Law, 2007).
In the context of teaching English for Specific Purposes, the evaluation of a course is significantly important at Industrial Economics and Technology College given the context described hereafter. Every year, Industrial Economics and Technology College provides several ESP courses in the fields of accountant, finance and banking, mechanics, electricity, information technology for total of around 1,500 students before they leave the College. The College does that to equip the necessary knowledge on their line areas in English so that they could be sufficiently confident in their latter job. To prepare for those courses, English-teaching teachers at the College decide the targets, purposes, develop their materials, design syllabus and create tests on their own without any guidance, instruction or framework from the higher management levels.
After teaching the course, there is no comment from their learners. Their teaching is just evaluated by the test done by their students after learning rather than any other methods. In other words, there has not had any evaluation on how the course is, how the content is, how students inquiry knowledge and skill for their future life, their coming job. Therefore, an evaluation of the ESP course for third-year students at Industrial Economics and Technology College under the guide of learner-centered teaching approach is important for the English-teaching teachers to have some improvement or renovation for their better training activities.
Aims and objectives of the study The study is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of the English for Economics and 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Business course. To achieve this aim, the study tries to: Evaluate the English for Economics and Business course towards learner-centered teaching approach in the perspective of students Evaluate the English for Economics and Business course towards learner-centered teaching approach in the perspective of teachers. Research questions With the above aims and objectives, the following questions were used for the study: 1. To what extent was the ESP course learner-centered from the perspective of students? 2.
To what extent was the ESP course learner-centered from the perspective of teachers? 4. Scope of the study The study was conducted with the assistance from non-English third-year students after they fulfilled two General English classes, English for communication purpose at Industrial Economics and Technology College. Among several ESP courses conducted annually at Industrial Economics and Technology, only the course of English for Economics and Business was chosen for evaluation. The evaluation focuses on the learner-centeredness of the course of English for Economics and Business since it is one of the most appropriate approaches in teaching ESP and evaluation is done in only 4 aspects: the function of content, role of teachers, responsibilities for learning, and purposes and processes of assessment.
Methods of the study In this study, different techniques were employed. Firstly, an appropriate framework has been selected which is developed by Blumberg (2009) for the course evaluation. Secondly, to achieve the aims, the qualitative and quantitative approach utilizing 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com survey questionnaires and interview were used to collect the data. The method used in this study was summative evaluation.
In common, the data for the study could be obtained through the following instruments: The questionnaire was delivered to 80 third-year students at Industrial Economics and Technology College to understand how they marked their learning in four aspects. The interviews were used to get the feedback from the 09 lecturers of the course with the same question items which were delivered in the questionnaire used for students but with deeper and additional information.