VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* PHẠM THỊ KHÁNH LINH USING PROJECT-BASED LEARNING APPROACH TO IMPROVE ESP VOCABULARY FOR THE SECOND- YEAR STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS AND TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE Sử dụng phương pháp học theo dự án để trau dồi từ vựng Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên năm thứ hai tại trường Cao đẳng Công nghệ và Kinh tế Công nghiệp M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* PHẠM THỊ KHÁNH LINH USING PROJECT-BASED LEARNING APPROACH TO IMPROVE ESP VOCABULARY FOR THE SECOND- YEAR STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS AND TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE Sử dụng phương pháp học theo dự án để trau dồi từ vựng Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên năm thứ hai tại trường Cao đẳng Công nghệ và Kinh tế Công nghiệp .A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: DƯƠNG THU MAI, PhD. Hanoi, 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Using project-based learning approach to improve ESP vocabulary for the second year students at Industrial Economics and Technology College” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution. Thai Nguyen, September, 2014 Signature Pham Thi Khanh Linh i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have given me great assistance in the completion of my research work. In the first place, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Duong Thu Mai, Ph.D, who has provided me with insightful discussion, helpful comments, valuable support in the preparation and completion of this thesis.
Without her guidance and help, this work would not have been accomplished. Secondly, my sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and staff of the faculty of Post- Graduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps. Thanks to their lessons as well as needed helps, I could overcome enormous obstacles when doing the study. I also wish to acknowledge the cooperation of my colleagues and the second- year students at Industrial Economics and Technology College in contributing to the data collection presented in this study.
Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my mother for her encouragement and great support during my time of fulfilling this thesis. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT English for specific purposes has been taught in universities and colleges in Vietnam for several years and it partially meets student’s needs. However, how to teach and learn vocabulary for English for Specific Purposes well is still a challenge for both teachers and learners. Besides, it seems that very little research has been implemented on using project based learning in teaching ESP vocabulary.
The objective of this study is to investigate the attitudes of students and teachers at IETC about project-based learning in teaching vocabulary in an ESP course. Four tools of data collection which were employed in this study are a questionnaire for 70 students, interviews for three teachers, learners’ diaries and document analysis. After data was received from the questionnaire, it was analyzed in charts, and the information from the teachers’ interviews was summarized interpretively. The results of the study show that both students and teachers at Industrial Economics and Technology College think that PBL is a fairly interesting and effective method in learning and teaching ESP vocabulary.
This suggests that the use of PBL is recommended to be further applied for ESP courses at IETC. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.vii LIST OF FIGURES. Objectives of the study.
The scope of the study. Design of the study.1 English for Specific Purposes.2 Special features of ESP .2 Performance-based Assessment and Project-based learning.1 Performance-based Assessment. Performance-based Assessment. Approaches of Performance-Based Assessment.
Project- based learning. Advantages of Project-Based Learning. Types of Projects.4 Process of project-based work. 11 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.5 Project- based learning in ESP.2 Aspects of vocabulary teaching.4 ESP vocabulary teaching .5 Previous studies in the world and in Vietnam.
Teaching and learning ESP vocabulary at IETC. Data analysis procedures. 30 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Students’ general attitude towards using PBL in learning ESP vocabulary (Research Question 1).1 Students’ attitude towards learning ESP vocabulary through the project.2 Students’ attitude towards teacher’s help in doing the project.
34 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.3 Students’ attitude towards interest and motivation of the project .4 Students’ attitude towards the content of the project.5 Students’ attitude towards the aims of the project .6 Students’ attitude towards group work in doing the project.7 Students’ difficulties in doing the project.2 Teachers’ attitude toward PBL (Research Question 2) .3 The extent that the project met the project objectives (Research Question 3). Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study. I vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PBL: Project- Based Learning PBA: Performance- Based Assessment ESP: English for Specific Purposes IETC: Industrial Economics and Technology College.
vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Students’ attitudes towards PBL improvement Figure 3.2: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ help Figure 3.3: Students’ attitudes towards interest and motivation Figure 3.4: Students’ attitudes towards content of the project Figure 3.5: Students’ attitudes towards aims Figure 3.6: Students’ attitudes towards group work Figure 3.7: Students’ difficulties Figure 3.8: Document Analysis of the final products viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Rationale English has become an international language and a very important and compulsory subject at schools because of the development of science, technology and economy in the world. The process of globalization have demanded us to use English in all fields with various activities which require special linguistic competency such as technical English, scientific English, medical English, English for business, English for political affairs, and English for tourism.As a result, English for Specific Purposes has become an important subject at universities and colleges to meet students’ needs when they graduate and find jobs. English for Specific Purposes has been taught at IETC for some years.
It partly meets the students’ needs. However, ESP is still a new subject for both teachers and students, making both have difficulties in the teaching and learning process, especially in teaching and learning ESP vocabulary. It is also an important aspect in teaching and learning ESP. British linguist Wilkins (1972: 111) once said that “Without grammar, little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed”.
Meanwhile, project-based learning approach is said to be an effective way which can help increase students’ motivation, which can improve not only all skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) in language learning but also other ones in society. PBL is considered as a bridge between classroom and reality. According to Blumenfeld et al., (1991: 372), “projects can serve to build bridges between phenomena in the classroom and real-life experiences; the questions and answers that arise in their daily enterprise are given value and are shown to be open to systematic inquiry”. When doing project works, students have to use English, so they have a chance to improve their English.
Also, they will obtain knowledge, information about the real world or their major as well as several social skills. In Vietnam, the project “Intel Teach to the Future” has been implemented by Ministry of Education and Training and Intel Vietnam in order to 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com experience PBL in teaching since 2003. By 2005, there were 2.340 teachers all over the country taking part in this program. PBL has been used as a new and interesting approach in teaching at schools and universities.
Besides, teaching and learning ESP vocabulary is not as very successful as what IETC’s teachers and students expect. It is still a challenge for both teachers and learners in general and for the ones at IETC in particular. Because of these reasons, this action research was done on the situation of the teaching and learning ESP vocabulary entitled: “Using project-based learning to improve ESP vocabulary for the second-year students at Industrial Economics and Technology College. Objectives of the study With the reasons above, this study was conducted with these following main ones: To explore the students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards project-based learning.
To see positive aspects and the difficulties that the students at IETC meet when they learn English for Specific Purposes vocabulary as well as problems that the teachers at IETC get when they teach ESP vocabulary. To investigate the extent of the ESP vocabulary project that meet the project objectives. Research questions With the aims stated above, three following questions were proposed for the study: 1. What are students’ attitudes to the project- based learning? 2.
What are teachers’ attitudes to the project- based learning? 3. To what extent does the students’ ESP vocabulary projects meet the project objectives? 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The scope of the study As mentioned in the research methodology, this is an action research. The subjects of the study include 70 second-year, non-major English students and three EFL teachers at Industrial Economics and Technology College.
Due to the limitation of time and scale of a minor thesis, it is impossible to cover every aspect of language theory and practice in this study, the study only focused on investigating the targeted students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards using PBL in teaching and learning ESP vocabulary and extent of the project that met the project objectives measured by the questionnaire responses, interviews and document analysis. Research methods The study was conducted as an action research. Different methods of an action research were used. They are a questionnaire, interviews, learners’ diaries and document analysis.
These methods were used to collect data from the students and teachers at IETC as well as from students’ products. A questionnaire was designed to investigate students’ attitudes and their main difficulties. After collecting the data from the questionnaire, the data was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The second method – interviews.
Teachers were interviewed to obtain clearer view of teachers’ attitude towards the application of project-based learning at IETC. Learners’ diaries were used to collect information for research question 1 and 3. Document Analysis was used to explore which aspects of the projects met its objectives. Documents include students’ final products of the project.
Design of the study 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The thesis is entitled “Using project-based learning to improve ESP vocabulary for the second-year students at Industrial Economics and Technology College.” The study will be designed with three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion. The first part, Introduction, is a brief overview of the study with more details of the rationale, the objectives, the methods, the research questions, the scope of the study as well as the design of the study. The second part, Development, consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 is literature review which presents the theoretical background of the thesis.
This chapter consists of definitions of key terms: project-based learning, vocabulary and ESP. A review of previous studies is also put in this chapter. Chapter 2 begins with an overview about teaching and learning ESP vocabulary at IETC. This chapter is also a deeper look on the method used in the study with participants and data collection procedures as well as data analysis one.
Chapter 3 deals with the findings and discussion. The last part, Conclusion, is devoted to the summary of the findings, limitations of the study. This chapter also provides some suggestions for further study. References and Appendices will be in the end.
4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I.