MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ LE PHUONG THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO ESP NEEDS OF STUDENTS OF AUTOMOBILE AT QUY NHON VOCATIONAL TRAINING COLLEGE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Language HUE, 2015 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ LE PHUONG THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO ESP NEEDS OF STUDENTS OF AUTOMOBILE AT QUY NHON VOCATIONAL TRAINING COLLEGE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60. TRUONG VIEN, Ph. HUE, 2015 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------------- LE PHUONG THAO ĐIỀU TRA VỀ NHU CẦU HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NGÀNH Ô TÔ TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG NGHỀ QUY NHƠN LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HOC: PGS.TS TRƯƠNG VIÊN HUẾ, 2015 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Date: 8/11/2015 Signature i ABSTRACT As English has become the accepted international language of technology and commerce, a new generation of learners who knew specially why they were learning a language was created. This study is intended to deal with one of the problems in teaching English for students of Automobile at QuyNhon Vocational Training College (QVTC). That’s the shortage of an appropriate ESP syllabus for the students of Automobile when they take the ESP course. In fact, the teachers and the students at QVTC have not had a real ESP syllabus so far.
In order to meet the students’ needs for English for Automobile, this study aims at investigating into ESP needs of students of Automobile in order to design an appropriate syllabus for the students of the Faculty of Automobile at QVTC. this thesis begins with the introduction discusses the rationale, the problems about the current situation of teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes at this college as well as expectation of students of faculty of Automobile. Second, it deals with the overview of ESP, the development of ESP in the world and in Vietnam as well, following is the overview of course design and syllabus design with different approaches to course design, needs analysis. Moreover, it includes methods and procedures which presents research methods with the subjects and procedures of the study in which questionnaires and interviews are used as the instruments to collect data about the needs.
The subjects for the study included 15 English teachers who are teaching ESP, 15 content teachers of faculty of Automobile and 150 students of 4 classes of the Faculty of Automobile at QVTC. This part presents the analysis of the survey questionnaires and interviews and the statistic results of the target needs and the learning needs as well. It also proposes an ESP syllabus for the second- year students at Faculty of Automobile at QVTC basing on the results of target needs and learning needs identified. It is hoped that this thesis will make some contribution to the teaching and learning ESP at QVTC.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Above all, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Truong Vien, Ph.D, who gave me valuable suggestions, insightful discussion and immeasurable support and encouragements in the development and completion of this study. My special thanks go to all the English teachers from Foreign Language Department, the content teachers from the Department of Automobile as well as the second year students of Automobile at Quy Nhon Vocational Traning College for completing the questionnaires, which contributes an essential part to the achievement of the research. Besides, I am deeply grateful to all my teachers for their useful comments and enthusiastic help for two years in the MA. Lastly, I am very much indebted to my family, my husband and friends for their encouragement and assistance during the time I conducted the study iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EBE English for Business and Economics EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a second Language EAP English for Academic Purposes EOP English for Occupational Purposes EST English for Science and Technology ESS English for the Social Science ESP English for Specific Purposes ELT English Language Teaching EVP English for Vocational Purposes GE General English QVTC Quy Nhon Vocational Training College iv LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS Page Figure 2.1:Types of ESP .3: A language - centered approach to course design .4: A skills-centered approach to course design .5: Learning- centered approach to course design .1: Teachers and students’s opinions about language elements.
40 v LISTS OF TABLES Page Table 3.1: Clustering the questionnaires for teachers and students .1: The reliability of the questionnaires .2: The mean score of cluster 1 for teachers .3: The mean score of cluster 1 for students .4: One sample T- Test for cluster 1 (teachers) .5: One sample T- Test for cluster 1 (students) .6: Mean score of the statements in the cluster 1 from teachers.7: Mean score of the statements in the cluster 1 from students .8: The mean score of cluster 2 for teachers .9: The mean score of cluster 2 for students .10: One sample T- Test for cluster 2 (teachers) .11: One sample T- Test for cluster 2 (students) .12:The mean score of the statements in the cluster 2 (Teachers ) .13: The mean score of the statements in the cluster 2 (students ) .14: The mean score of cluster 3 for teachers .15: The mean score of cluster 3 for students .16: One sample T- Test for cluster 3 (teachers) .17: One sample T- Test for cluster 3 (students) .18: The mean score of the statements in the cluster 3 (Teachers) .19: The mean score of the statements in the cluster 3 (Students) .20: The mean score of cluster 3 for teachers .21: The mean score of cluster 3 for teachers .22: One sample T- Test for cluster 4(teachers) .23: One sample T- Test for cluster 4(students) .24: The mean score of the statements in the cluster 4 (Teachers) .25: The mean score of the statements in the cluster 2 (Students). 47 vi LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Questionnaire A ( for Students) Appendix 2: Questionnaire B ( for Teachers) Appendix 3: Interview Questions ( For English Teacher) Appendix 4: Interview Questions ( For Employers) Appendix 5: Designing syllabus of Automobile. Appendix 6: Raw Calculation 1( Questionnaire for Teachers) Appendix 7: Raw Calculation 2( Questionnaire for Students) Appendix 8: Scientific Paper. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY.
iii LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv LIST OF FIGURES. v LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF APPENDICES .vii CONTENTS OF THESIS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION.
The current situation of teaching and learning English for Specific Purpose at QuyNhon Vocational Training College. Teaching ESP at QuyNhon Vocational Training College…. Aims of the study. Overview of the thesis.
6 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. What is English for Specific Purpose .Definitions of ESP. Characteristics of ESP. General English and English for Specific Purposes.
Types of ESP. The role of needs analysis. Definition of needs. Target situation analysis.
Present situation analysis. Definition of syllabus. The role of syllabus. Types of syllabus.
Content-based syllabuses. Notional function syllabus. Topic- based syllabus. Skill-based syllabuses.
Method- based syllabuses. Task-based syllabuses. Approach to course design. Language –centered approach.
Skill-centered approach. Learning- centered approach. 25 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES. 31 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Data analysis from teachers and students. The reliability of the questionnaires. The mean score of the questionnaires for teachers and students. The activities/ tasks should be included in the future textbook of Automobile in reference to students’ needs.
These classroom activities should be included in the future material……41 4. The necessary topics for the coming ESP textbook of Automobile. Needs perceived by teachers of English. Needs perceived by employers.
The suggested syllabus for the second year students of Automobile at QuyNhon Vocational Training College. Components of the syllabus. Objectives of the course. Language skills and exercises.
The course outline. 57 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of key findings. 62 x CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale It is undeniable that nowadays among numerous languages of the world, English takes the first position in international communication. It is English that is used the most widely in political, scientific, technical, economic, trade activities. Recently, along with the development of technology and business, the demand of English has remarkably changed. In many cases, people need to know a target language just to survive in the modern society.
People use English to learn better, to know more about new technology and be able to get a good job. For many reasons, English has gradually become the most widely used language in all kinds of international relations. In Vietnam, thanks to the open door policy of the Government, many foreign companies, the majority of which use English as a medium of communication, have come and invested in various fields like tourism, electronics, telecommunication, banking, transportation, environment, oil industry, etc. Together with the increasing role of English in every walk of social life in Vietnam nowadays, the demand for English teaching and learning, especially English for particular fields or English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has recently become so prevalent in various educational, vocational and academic institutions.
English is the common foreign language that is taught in most schools, colleges and universities in Vietnam. Students are eager to use English to read their professional materials. However, in the past few years, the materials for learning and teaching ESP are not available, or not suitable for learners' needs and levels of knowledge. This has upset many teachers whose job and responsibility are to prepare a good command of English for learners in their prospective future professions.
At QuyNhon Vocational Training College (QVTC), there are many faculties such as Information Technology, Electronics and Automation, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Business and Accounting, etc. The students 1 learning here are trained to become engineers and workers in the future. They will work in factories, companies or workshops where English is used in their jobs, in lectures or seminars. These challenges have required a great number of technicians, engineers to use English when working, studying and doing research.
The aim of teaching English at QVTC is to provide students with general English and then, an ESP course is expected to help them in their future work. Students take the General English (GE) course with 120 periods and the textbooks used are Headway Elementary and Headway Pre-Intermediate. After finishing their GE course, students of Automobile will take the ESP course of 60 periods. This may be due to the fact that ESP teaching and learning might not be new in many countries in which English is used as a foreign language or second language.
Students in QVTC and at Faculty of Automobile study ESP for two purposes. Firstly, they need ESP for the research to study their specialization, for them to read materials, books of ESP and to update new technology etc. Secondly, ESP really is the key for their jobs in the future. To obtain these purposes, the students must have high qualification of English, good competence and have four good skills of languages: reading, writing, listening and speaking.
However, teaching ESP at QVTC has faced many difficulties such as teachers’ lack of knowledge in various fields, the lack of textbooks, financial problems and especially the teaching programs.