VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------&&&--------- DESIGNING PROFESSIONALLY- ORIENTED COMMUNICATIVE SITUATIONS FOR CUSTOMS OFFICERS IN THE NORTHWEST BORDER AREA (Nghiên cứu n tn u n ot pp v n n p n o n ộ qu n ử u n M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major : English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 HANOI, 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------&&&--------- DESIGNING PROFESSIONALLY- ORIENTED COMMUNICATIVE SITUATIONS FOR CUSTOMS OFFICERS IN THE NORTHWEST BORDER AREA (Nghiên cứu n tn u n ot pp v n n p n o n ộ qu n ử u n M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major : English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 up rv sor r n u n h ng u n HANOI, 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “ s n n prof ss on ll - oriented communicative situations for customs officers in the Northwest border t ” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution. Hanoi, June 2019 Vu Thi Nga i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this study would have been impossible without the enthusiastic assistance of many special and wonderful people.
First of all, I would like to express my great thankfulness to my supervisor, Dr. Le Thi Hong Duyen for her extremely helpful advice and guidance as well as her constant support during all stages of the study. I also would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan – Dean of the Post Graduate Studies Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University for his suggestions and support so that I could complete my thesis in time.
My profound thanks also go to all staff in Ma Lu Thang border gate and Lai Chau and Lao Cai customs office for their tremendous support in the collection of data and information for my study. This study has also been sponsored by North West Project 2018. Therefore, I would like to send my sincere thanks to the board administrators and staff of the Project for their valuable support. My appreciation also goes to my relatives as well as my colleagues whose understanding and sharing is invaluable to me in completing my thesis.
Finally, this thesis is the product of my long-term study, so I wish to express my acknowledgement to other individuals who have indirectly contributed to the completion of this thesis. To all these people, I hope that the achievement of the thesis will be favorable enough to satisfy their expectations. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT In the context of integration and globalization, English communication at work has become an essential demand for occupations. Among them, customs officers at the border gate also have opportunities to communicate with foreigners.
However, there seems to be a lack of studies regarding designing English materials or courses for customs officers. Under initial exploration of such research gap, the researcher conducted this study with the purpose to design the professional oriented communicative situations for the customs officers at the Northwest border gate. This study is conducted with the participation of 25 customs officers at Ma Lu Thang, an important border gate of Lai Chau province. In this research, four main data collection instruments are employed, namely questionnaires, observation, semi-structured interviews, and document review.
Besides, the researcher also strictly followed the four main steps in designing communicative situation including needs analysis, production, evaluation and adaptation. As a result, 50 specialized English communicative situations were created according to 12 working domains. Hopefully, this study yields in a practical and useful tool for customs officers and also makes a significant contribution in confirming the reliability of the major steps in the process of ESP materials development. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CNP : Communicative Needs Professor C.O : Customs Officer EAP : English For Academy Purposes EOP : English For Occupational Purposes ESP : English For Specific Purposes LSA : Learning Situation Analysis NA : Needs Analysis PSA : Present Situation Analysis TSA : English For Target Situation Analysis iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures Figure1.
Procedures of materials development (Tomlinson, 2012). Adapted framework of procedures for materials development. Difficulties in learning and training professional English. TSA Framework (Songhori, 2008, p.
Data collection procedures. The needs for communication and mastery of specialized English. Information about the personnel working at Ma Lu Thang border gate. Participants’ agreement on the use of main topics for “English professionally oriented communicative situations for customs officers working at the border gate”.
Interview results of English communicative situations’suggestions. List of English professionally oriented communicative situations for customs officers working at the border gate .35 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES.v TABLE OF CONTENTS.
vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Research aims and research questions. Scope of the study.
Methods of the study. Significance of the study. Organization of the thesis .4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. English for occupational purposes.
Target situation analysis. Present needs analysis. ESP materials development. Principles of materials development.
Procedures for materials development. Previous studies on ESP materials development .16 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. An overview of the research site and the participants .20 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection instruments.
Data collection procedures .25 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Communicative needs of customs officers at the border gate of Northwest region. The needs of English spoken communication. The sections where English is required.
Difficulties of customs officers in using English at work. Popular professional- oriented communicative situations. Summary of the research results. Implications of the study.
Limitation of the study. Future research directions. XII vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Vietnam is on the strongly international integration with lots of opportunities and challenges, which requires the social workforce to attain qualification.
It means that employers need the proper proficiency in English language to make ends meet for internationally integrated demand. In recent years teaching English language has been more and more improved because many activities are organized effectively to keep learners active and self-confident in communicatingEnglish. People are focusing on developing English communicative skills in the work environment to get better opportunities for promotion. Therefore, in the Northwest provinces, Lang Son, Lao Cai, Ha Giang, designing English materials for border gate customs officers who communicate with foreigners and read the documents is also important since it became a useful device for trade, selling, tourism in the area containing the economic border gate zone.
The English communication skills in the border zone can clearly play an integral part in exchanging the defense cooperation or trading commodities tourism and so on. The skillful lack of qualification in English for mutual communication creates misunderstandings leading to conflicting unexpectedly. Moreover, there have been few specialized English course books and suitable learning materials for customs officers to enhance their professionally oriented communication. In general, the advantages of practicing professionally oriented situations may be fully utilized by customs officers to succeed in communicating with foreign partners in the border gate, so the customs officers do not feel embarrassed to communicate with foreigners as tourists and merchants The Northwest Program is the concretization of the strategic policy of the Vietnamese Party and State: considering Science and Technology as the primary national policy to promote to the highest degree the intellectual resources and create an impetus for the development of knowledge-based economy in the Northwest 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com region, through the issues raised in the development realities of the region and of each locality, raise production capacity and competitiveness, promote the advantages, resources and potential, raising of overall growth level of the region and bring about the practical benefits to the community of ethnic minority groups living in the Northwest provinces.
Participating in the project of the Northwest program which was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the researcher wishes to partially contribute to the development of Lai Chau province. More and more travelers are now heading up into this part of the country, in part due to the long-awaited opening of the border crossing into Laos near Dien Bien Phu, Dien Bien province. Currently, the knowledge of a foreign language is one of the basic requirements imposed by employers in most industries, including the customs service. In this regard, the Customs Officer administration required an English handbook aimed to improve the knowledge of this language for their employees.
Moreover, Lai Chau is in the affected region of the economic corridor Kunming - Lao Cai - Ha Noi - Hai Phong. In the China territory, Yunnan Province is a big market of goods consumption. The highway from Kunming to Kim Binh town (38 km from the border-gate) is the favorable condition for Ma Lu Thang border gate economic zone exploiting potential and opportunities for goods import and export, travelling trade and services, participating in the exchange of goods between Vietnam and China. To ensure the implementation of national provisions on customs procedures, inspection and supervision in export, import and temporary re-export; transit of people and vehicles at the border in the province under the provisions of customs legislation is required.
To exploit the maximum potential advantages of the province in the future, the Ministry of Education and Training deployed ULIS-VNU to conduct a thorough program to improve the language competences of officers working in the region. All mentioned above, the researcher chose “designing professionally oriented communicative situations for customs officers in the northwest border gate” in the research dissertation. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research aims and research questions This study aims to investigate English communicative needs of customs officers in Ma Lu Thang northwest border area with a purpose of designing the professionally oriented communicative situations.
It means that an ESP material for bettering the customs officers’ daily duties is developed to facilitate cross-border communication. Therefore, the researcher utilized the thoroughly chosen strategies to design the professionally oriented communicative situations for customs officers In order to achieve this aim, the following objectives are established including analyzing the needs of the customs officers in the Northwest border gate, the problems faced by observing their real-life situations carefully.The research results come out with suggested process for other authors to compose an English handbook for other majors and a modification for the first version of the English handbook for Northwest Customs Officers. The researcher also anticipates the effectiveness of the use of the product in the working place of Customs Officers. The objectives can be summarized by two research questions as follows: ✔ What are the English communicative needs of customs officers in performing their duties in the border area? ✔ What are popular communicative situations related to their profession? 3.
Scope of the study As mentioned above, the focus of this study is only to select the English commonly communicative situations for performing the customs officers’ duties at the border gate of Lai Chau province. Currently, Lai Chau, which shares 273 km of the borderline with China- bordering with Yunnan province in particular, has one main Ma Lu Thang border gate.