A study on second-year navigation students' difficulties in learning ESP vocabulary at Haiphong Poli-technical College Trần Thái Sơn Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. M.A. Mai Thị Loan Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: ESP vocabulary takes an initial and significant role in acquiring maritime English. To capture these terms properly, navigation students need to attain not only the words themselves but also their specific uses on board the vessels. During the lessons and tests, there have appeared facts that students cannot remember maritime vocabulary easily and use it effectively. In addition, they seem to encounter some particular obstacles in learning the specific words. This study is carried out among the second-year navigation students at the Faculty of Navigation, Haiphong Poly-technical College. Some of the students’ major difficulties are the ESP vocabulary pronunciation and meanings, inappropriate materials, and lack of effective strategies for learning ESP vocabulary. The causes of these difficulties are the lack of GE knowledge, difficulties in teaching ESP words and lack of learner autonomy. Some suggested solutions have been drawn out to overcome these difficulties. These solutions help enhance the necessary GE knowledge, develop resources for ESP vocabulary teaching and learning, encourage the development of effective vocabulary learning strategies, develop the effective ESP vocabulary teaching and encourage students to form their learning autonomy. The result of this study aims at introducing effective and appropriate ways of teaching ESP vocabulary, and providing students with appropriate methods so that they can build their desired ways of learning words and better their maritime English. Keywords: Phương pháp dạy học; Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành; Từ vựng 6 Content: TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration of originality i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of abbreviations vii List of tables and charts viii Part 1: Introduction 1 1. Rationale of the study 1 2. Aims of the study 2 3. Scope of the study 2 4. Methods of the study 2 5. Significance of the study 3 6. Design of the study 3 Part 2: Development 4 Chapter 1: Literature review 4 1.1. English for Special Purposes 4 1.1.1. Definition of ESP 4 1.1.2. Classification of ESP 5 1.1.3. Maritime English 6 1.1.4. The requirements for ESP teachers 6 1.2. Terminology 7 1.2.1. Definition of terminology 7 1.2.2. Characteristics of terminology 8 1.3. Vocabulary 8 1.3.1. Definition of words 8 1.3.2. Classification of words 9 1.3.3. Four strands in learning vocabulary 9 1.4. Factors affecting vocabulary acquisition 10 7 1.4.1. Learner styles and learner strategies 10 1.4.2. Materials 11 1.4.3. Pronunciation and spelling 12 1.4.4. Prototypes 12 1.4.5. Contextualization 13 1.4.6. Learner autonomy 13 1.5. Strategies to enhance students’ vocabulary 14 1.5.1. Developing a variety of techniques for the teaching of meaning 14 1.5.2. Encouraging the development of effective strategies 14 1.5.3. Exposing learners to vocabulary through reading and training lexical inferencing 14 1.5.4. Teaching the effective use of dictionaries 14 1.5.5. Evaluating the vocabulary component of course books 15 1.5.6. Teaching vocabulary explicitly through a range of activity types 15 1.5.7. Developing resources for vocabulary teaching 15 1.6. Summary 15 Chapter 2: Methodology 16 2.1. Context of the study 16 2.2. Research question 16 2.3. Subjects of the study 17 2.4. Data collection instruments 17 2.4.1. Questionnaire 17 2.4.2. Test 17 2.4.3. Interview 18 2.5. Data collection procedure 18 Chapter 3: Data analysis, major findings and suggested solutions 19 3.1. Data analysis 19 3.1.1. Questionnaire 19 3.1.2. Test 26 3.1.3. Interview 30 3.2. Major findings 32 8 3.2.1. Lack of necessary GE knowledge 32 3.2.2. ESP vocabulary pronunciation and meanings 32 3.2.3. Inappropriate materials 32 3.2.4. Lack of effective strategies for learning ESP vocabulary 33 3.2.5. Difficulties in teaching ESP words 33 3.2.6. Lack of learner autonomy 33 3.3. Suggested solutions 34 3.3.1. Enhancing the necessary GE knowledge 34 3.3.2. Developing resources for ESP vocabulary teaching and learning 34 3.3.3. Encouraging the development of effective vocabulary learning strategies 35 3.3.4. Developing the effective ESP vocabulary teaching 36 3.3.5. Encouraging students to form their learning autonomy 36 Part 3: Conclusion 37 1. Summary of the study 37 2. Limitations of the study 38 3. Suggestions for further study 38 References 39 Appendices I Appendix 1: Questionnaire I Appendix 2: Test IV Appendix 3: Answer keys to the test VII Appendix 4: Interview questions for ESP teachers VIII 9 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESP: English for Specific Purposes EBE: English for Business and Economics ESS: English for Social Science EST: English for Science and Technology EAP: English for Academic Purposes EOP: English for Occupational Purpose GB: Great Britain GE: General English UK: The United Kingdom USA: The United States of America 10 LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Chart 1: Time length of learning English before college entrance Table 1: Results in learning basic English Chart 2: Most difficult part of ESP vocabulary Table 2: Obstacles with ESP vocabulary learning materials Table 3: Problems with learning ESP vocabulary in the course books Chart 3: Teachers’ instructing the meanings of ESP vocabulary Chart 4: Teachers’ instructing the uses of ESP vocabulary Chart 5: Students’ ways to learn new ESP words Table 4: Students’ practising ESP vocabulary during the class time Table 5: Ways of revising ESP vocabulary Table 6: Realization of transcription Table 7: Realization of stressed syllable positions Table 8: Recognition of word meanings in contexts Table 9: Uses of word when describing the subject contents Table 10: Uses of ESP word 11 PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Words take an important part in our daily social and occupational communications. With teaching and learning English, especially English for Specific Purposes, words appear as the materials and products of these procedures. McCarthy has stated that “no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successful the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way.” (1990: viii) When working as seamen on board the vessels, especially multi-lingual ones, the Vietnamese seafarers need sufficient knowledge of navigation and good competence of English of at least an elementary level. Students at the Navigational Faculty of Haiphong Poly-technical College will become future seamen on board, thus good competence of English language is necessary for them in both speaking and listening. They have to learn technical terms about deck equipment, departure, anchoring and pilotage. It is also required that they should learn specific vocabulary such as the weather station, magnetic compasses, ventilator, funnel, gyro compasses, GPS, steering stand, navigation lights, engine order telegraph, control consol, navigation table, communication station, emergency equipment, anchor, hatch, hawser, and other appliances on board the vessels. They also need to know English vocabulary about operations in hoisting gangways, mooring ropes, cargo handling, and keeping watches, hear steering orders and repeat them for confirmation before operation. The second-year students of the Navigation Faculty of Haiphong Poly-technical College start to learn maritime English at the beginning of their third term. Their course book is English I for Navigation Students, which has been composed and brought into use for one course. Through my teaching experience, I have discovered that there have been some obstacles while the students have been learning their maritime English vocabulary, although the teachers have tried their best to instruct them. After a number of periods learning maritime vocabulary, the learners seem unable to remember correct words or to use the right one for their learning purposes. Some admit that they wish to widen their quantity of vocabulary but they lack suitable ways. In order to discover the problems with the learning Maritime English vocabulary which navigation students may face, we carry out this study on the second-year navigation 12 students’ difficulties in learning major vocabulary. Certain ways to overcome the obstacles for the navigation students will be drawn out from the results of this study. 2. Aims of the study On doing this minor research, we aim at finding out the difficulties which the second- year students have in learning maritime English vocabulary and some possible causes of these difficulties. Five suggested solutions will be provided to help second-year students overcome these obstacles. 3. Scope of the study There have been a number of investigations on the difficulties in learning English vocabulary up to now. This assignment covers some of the navigation students’ prevailing obstacles in learning maritime English vocabulary. The participants are 122 second-year navigation students and four other ESP teachers at Haiphong Poly-technical College. The results of this study will be used as suggestions for better teaching and learning ESP vocabulary at Navigation Faculty of the college. 4. Methods of the study When carrying out this assignment, the author prepares a questionnaire, a test and an interview to investigate the second-year navigation students’ difficulties in learning maritime English vocabulary and find out some possible causes of these difficulties. The questionnaire consists of 10 questions, basing on the information in the literature review part and the aims of the study. This questionnaire is prepared in Vietnamese for the learners to read, think and answer suitably and adequately. After that it is delivered to second-year navigation students, and the answers are collected and analyzed. The real difficulties in learning maritime English vocabulary and some possible causes to these difficulties will be found out. A test paper with two exercises on maritime vocabulary is also designed for the learners, who have fulfilled the questionnaire, to take. The results of this minor test will help find out the students’ actual difficulties in learning maritime English vocabulary. Besides, an interview with four other teachers teaching English I for Navigation Students to the second-year students is also conducted. Each teacher is given four questions and their answers will contribute to consolidating our findings about the students’ difficulties in learning ESP words and suggesting some solutions to overcome those difficulties. 13 5. Significance of the study Theoretically, this study will help us to uncover the second-year students’ obstacles in learning the maritime vocabulary. A clearer look into the reasons for these difficulties will also be gained, and some suggested solutions will be drawn out. Practically, it suggests a certain ways in teaching and learning vocabulary to help the students overcome these difficulties so that they can be confident not only in learning maritime English vocabulary but also in using these words for their future jobs on board seagoing vessels. 6. Design of the study The thesis consists of three main parts as follows: Part 1: Introduction This component of the study includes the rationale, aims, scope, methods, significance and design of the study. The readers are provided with the reasons for choosing the research issue, the research questions, the boundary of the investigation, the ways to carry out the study and its organization. Part 2: Development This part contains three chapters. Chapter 1 reviews some theoretical background for this study. It focuses on the English for Special Purposes, vocabulary, terminology, factors affecting learning vocabulary, and strategies to enhance students’ vocabulary. Chapter 2 introduces the methodology of this study. It provides some necessary information about the context of the study, research questions, subjects of the study, data collection instruments and data collection procedure. Chapter 3 represents the data collection analysis on the questionnaire, test and interview. Some major findings based on the analysis will be drawn out, and some suggested solutions to the difficulties which the navigation students cope with when learning ESP vocabulary, the possible causes of these difficulties and some solutions will be included in this chapter. Part 3 is the conclusion, which summarizes the study, states its limitations, and suggests further investigation into the problem. 49 REFERENCES 1. Aitchison, J. (1987). Words in the Mind. An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. Great Britain: Basil Blackwell. 2. Antia, B. E. (2000). Terminology and Language Planning. An alternative framework of practice and discourse. 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Teaching English for Science and Technology Singapore: Singapore University Press Pte Ltd 35 Richards, J C and Rodgers, T S (2001) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching USA: Cambridge University Press 51 36 Rivers, W M and Temperley, M S (1978) A practical guide to the teaching of English as a second or foreign language USA: Oxford University Press 37 Schmitt, N and McCarthy, M (1997) Vocabulary: ... http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/Publications/paul-nation/2002-MearaVocabulary.pdf 44 http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/Publications/paul-nation/2003-VocabularyNunan.pdf 45 http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/Publications/paul-nation/2006-Language-educationvocabulary.pdf . This study is carried out among the second-year navigation students at the Faculty of Navigation, Haiphong Poly-technical College. Some of the students’ major difficulties are the ESP vocabulary. with ESP vocabulary learning materials Table 3: Problems with learning ESP vocabulary in the course books Chart 3: Teachers’ instructing the meanings of ESP vocabulary Chart 4: Teachers’ instructing. keeping watches, hear steering orders and repeat them for confirmation before operation. The second-year students of the Navigation Faculty of Haiphong Poly-technical College start to learn maritime