CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: NEEDS-ANALYSIS FOR IMPROVING ESP TEACHING AND LEARNING AT HCMC UNIVERSITY OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION In terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee HoChiMinh City, November 25th, 2005 PHAÏM THÒ NGOÏC AÙNH I RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Phaïm Thò Ngoïc AÙnh, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan and reproduction of theses. HoChiMinh City, November 25th, 2005 PHAÏM THÒ NGOÏC AÙNH II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Ñoaøn Hueä Dung, who provided valuable comments, criticisms and support in the preparation and completion of this thesis.
My special thanks to the organizers of this thesis, Mr. Nguyeãn Huyønh Ñaït, Head of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, HoChiMinh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ms. Nguyeãn thò Hoàng Thaém, who gave me useful guidelines in the thesis. Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband, who helped me with designing the thesis and always encouraged and supported me during the time I did my thesis; and my colleagues, who were dedicated to support me so that I could devote my time to complete the thesis.
III ABSTRACT ESP learning at universities in general and at HoChiMinh City University of Technical Education in particular today is considered not very effective and attracting to students. In reality, ESP competence of technical workers who were graduated from technical universities or vocational training centers is not adequate for their jobs. As parts of the effort to look for possible solutions for improving ESP learning and teaching, this study focused on identifying and analyzing ESP learning needs of technical students with the aim of making some suggestions for upgrading ESP learning quality at the UTE. Two hundreds and sixty four present students, ninety former students, twenty eight subject teachers and ten ESP teachers of the UTE participated in the study.
A questionnaire with 16 questions was delivered to each teacher and collected after three days; another questionnaire with 20 questions was also handed to the former and the present students with an explanation about the purpose of the study to encourage them to voice their opinions about their ESP learning needs. The informal pocket interviews to those ten ESP teachers was conducted at the UTE for gathering qualitative data to assist the interpretation of the data obtained from the questionnaires and to look for some solutions for better ESP teaching and learning. The results of the study showed that ESP learning needs of the students should be taken into consideration in ESP course design, and needs analysis should be the starting point of ESP learning process for maximizing ESP learning effectiveness. The analysis of the questionnaires proved that the two factors affecting students’ ESP learning needs the most were the ineffectiveness of the traditional method of teaching applied in ESP classes and the inappropriate curriculum at universities nowadays.
Besides, the analysis of the interviews suggested that needs analysis should be taken not only at the beginning of ESP courses but also during the whole process of ESP learning for the most practical benefit of the students. From this viewpoint, needs analysis for enhancing ESP learning is recommended to improve the effectiveness of ESP learning and teaching at the UTE. IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESP : English for Specific Purposes EGP : English for General Purposes EG : General English EAP : English for Academic Purposes EST : English for Science and Technology EFL : English as a Foreign Language. EOP : English for Occupational Purposes EBE : English for Business and Economics ESS : English for Social Studies EVP : English for Vocational Purposes ELT : English Language Teaching EMT : English as a Mother Tongue ESL : English as a Second Language TSA : Target Situation Analysis PSA : Present Situation Analysis UTE : University of Technical Education CLT : Communicative Language Teaching V LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 : Needs analysis: summary (Jordan, 1997:29) .2 : The tree chart of ELT (Hutchinson, 1987: 17) .3 : Factors affecting ESP course design (Hutchinson, 1987: 22) .1 : Students’ assessment of ESP learning .2 : Students’ expectations of ESP learning .3 : Factors that have the strongest influence on ESP learning needs .4 : Students’ opinions about current ESP teaching methodology.5 : Students’ opinions about ESP effective teaching methodology.6 : Students’ opinions about useful classroom activities in ESP learning .7 : Suggested studying style in ESP classes .8 : Suggested learning style in ESP classes .9 : Students’ opinions about current ESP syllabus .10 : Students’ opinions about the tasks given in ESP textbooks .11 : The materials students liked to study .12 : Teaching aids needed for enhancing ESP learning.13 : Logical time for ESP training in the curriculum .14 : Suitable point of time to register for ESP.15 : Suitable class size for ESP learning .16 : Students’ opinions for ESP orientation .17 : Students’ opinions about the grades .18 : Students’ assessment about their ESP proficiency .19 : Students’ opinions for improving ESP learning .20 : Students’ opinions about the role of needs-analysis in ESP learning .21 : The role of needs analysis in ESP teaching and learning .22 : Factors causing students’ unsuccessfulness in ESP learning .23 : Factors affecting students’ attitudes of ESP learning .24 : Factors that have the strongest influence on ESP learning needs .25 : Suggested teaching approach for ESP teaching .26 : Teachers’ assessment of classroom activities .27 : Teachers’ assessment of current ESP syllabus .28 : Students’ assessment of ESP textbooks .29 : Teachers’ assessment of teaching aids for improving ESP learning .30 : Logical time for ESP training in the curriculum .31 : Suitable point of time to register for ESP.32 : Suitable class size for applying new teaching method.33 : Teachers’ opinions for ESP orientation .34 : Teachers’ opinions about testing system .35 : Suggested solutions for improving ESP teaching and learning .36 : Teachers’ training of the issue of needs analysis .37 : A positive learning cycle (Hutchinson, 1987: 47) .1 : The pre-plan (Harmer, 1991:265) .2 : A learning-center approach to course design (Hutchinson, 1987: 74) .73 VII LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: The failing rate of the ESP exam of the students of different faculties at the UTE in the academic year of 2004 - 2005 .2: The failing rate of the final exams of some specialized subjects of the students at the UTE in the academic year of 2004 -2005 .1: The number and percentage of the students participating in the survey .2: The results of the responses to the questionnaires collected from the present and the former students .3: The number and percentage of the teachers participating in the survey .4: The results obtained from the questionnaires’ responses of the teachers.5: The gap between ESP learning needs of the teachers and the students in terms of the factors that could mostly affect ESP learning.
55 VIII TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of Originality. I Retention and Use of the Thesis. IV List of Abbreviations. V List of Figures.
VI List of Table.VIII Table of Contents. IX CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.3 Statement of purpose.5 Significance of the study.10 Organization of the study. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Language learning needs .1 Classification of language needs .2 Needs analysis in language learning .3 Approaches and terms used in needs analysis .2 ESP learning needs .1 What is ESP?.2 The categorization of ESP .3 Factors affecting ESP learning needs. 17 CHAPTER 3: OVERVIEW OF THE ESP TEACHING AND LEARNING AT THE UTE 3.1 Description of physical setting.2 Description of the English courses.1 The descriptions of English syllabus .2 The descriptions of the course books .3 The descriptions of classroom activities .3 Characteristics of the students.1 General English level at entry .2 ESP learning needs .4 Characteristics of the teaching staff .2 ESP teaching competence.
21 CHAPTER 4: DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 4.1 Selection of samples .3 Coding and relevant categories. 29 CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 5.1 Questionnaires to present and former students:.1 Students’ background information .2 Students’ ESP learning needs .2 Questionnaires to ESP and subject teachers .1 Teachers’ background information .2 Teachers’ opinions about students’ ESP learning needs .3 Interviews with teachers .1 Teachers’ opinions about students’ ESP learning needs .2 Teachers’ opinions about ESP teaching and learning .3 Teachers’ opinions about improvements for satisfactory ESP courses .1 Students and teachers’ background information .2 Students and teachers’ opinions towards factors affecting ESP learning needs .1 Students and teachers’ opinions towards teaching methodology .2 Students and teachers’ opinions towards syllabus design .3 Students and teachers’ opinions towards testing .4 Students and teachers’ opinions towards training management .3 Solutions for improving ESP learning .1 Updating with new teaching methodology .2 Updating with needs–based syllabus.3 Changing testing format. 63 CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY, IMPLICATIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 Summary of the study .2 Implications for teaching .3 Conclusions of the study .4 Recommendations for improving ESP teaching and learning at the UTE 71 6.1 To the students .2 To the ESP teachers .3 To the subject teachers .4 To the administrative staff. 75 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1A: Questionnaire to students in Vietnamese.
78 APPENDIX 1B: Questionnaire to students in English. 80 APPENDIX 2A: Questionnaire to teachers in Vietnamese. 82 APPENDIX 2B: Questionnaire to teachers in English. 85 APPENDIX 3: Interview list.
88 APPENDIX 4: The statistics of the ESP learning results. 89 APPENDIX 5: End-of-Term Test. 90 APPENDIX 6: Sample unit of washing machine. 94 XII Chapter I: Introduction 1 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND This study focuses on analyzing ESP learning needs of technical students with the aim of making some suggestions for better ESP learning and teaching at HCMC University of Technical Education (UTE).
In this stage of enlarging industrialization and modernization of the country, the ESP learning needs of technical students should have been analyzed at all levels to give ESP teachers a good idea of how to provide a program of balanced activities that will be most motivating and most beneficial to the students (Harmer, 1991:265). Next, basing on some large-scale projects of training highly qualified ESP teachers for vocational educational networks throughout the country which has been recently approved by the Ministry of Education, a greater improvement on ESP teaching and learning at the UTE has been requested. Furthermore, it may help to find out some possible solutions to erase the gap, if any, between what students is provided at universities and what they really need to be provided to meet with the increasing technical manpower requirements of the labour market. All these are emerging needs that should be recognized and acted upon.
This requires conscious effort from different sides - faculties of the UTE as a whole, and teachers of the English Department in particular.2 THE PROBLEM The motive for this thesis formation is originated from the unexpected reality of the students’ ESP proficiency at the UTE. The failing rate of students in the ESP exam of the school year of 2004-2005 can probably raise a great deal of concern among ESP teachers. The true statistics is clearly given in the table below. No Faculties Failing rate 1 Information Technology 21,9% 2 Electronics Engineering 35,0% 3 Garment and Food Technology 11, 5% 4 Automobile Technology 31,4% 5 Mechanical Engineering 25,6% Table 1.