VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐINH THỊ TUYẾT THOA difficulties in reading “English for Finance” of the second-year-students of Accounting Department at Hanoi Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics TÌM HIỂU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI KHOA KẾ TOÁN CỦA TRƢỜNG CAO ĐẲNG NGHỀ CƠ ĐIỆN HÀ NỘI M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi – 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐINH THỊ TUYẾT THOA difficulties in reading “English for Finance” of the second-year-students of Accounting Department at Hanoi Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics TÌM HIỂU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI KHOA KẾ TOÁN CỦA TRƢỜNG CAO ĐẲNG NGHỀ CƠ ĐIỆN HÀ NỘI M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Dr Dƣơng Thị Nụ Hanoi – 2011 iv List of abbreviation ESP: English for Specific Purposes EOP: English for Occupational Purposes EAP: English for Academic Purposes EEP: English for Educational Purposes GE: General English IT: Information Technology HVTCEM: Hanoi Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics v List of figures, charts and tables Figures: Figure 1: ESP classification by experience Figure 2: ESP classification by professional area Tables: Table 1: Students’ perception on the purposes of learning reading English for Finance Table 2: Students’ focus when learning English for Finance Table 3: The difficulties in term of reading skills Table 4: The difficulties in term of vocabulary Table 5: The difficulties in term of grammar Table 6: The difficulties in term of cultural background knowledge Table 7: Students’ views of sources of difficulties Table 8: The students’ expectation in term of materials Table 9: The students’ expectation in term of methodology Charts: Chart 1: Students’ preference in ESP reading Chart 2: Students’ perception on the importance of ESP reading Chart 3: Students’ perception on the necessity of reading English for Finance for their future job vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of authorship i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii List of abbreviations iv List of figures, tables and charts v Table of content vi Part I INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………… 1 Rationale Aims of the study Research questions Methods of research Scope of the study Organizations of the study Part 2: Development ……………………………… Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 Basic concepts about ESP……………………… ………………… 1.1.1 Definitions of ESP 1.1.2 Types of ESP 1.2 Reading in ESP teaching and learning 1.2.1 Reading skills in ESP 1.2.2 ESP teachers and their roles 1.2.3 ESP students and their roles 1.2.4 ESP reading materials and their roles 1.3 Difficulties in ESP reading 1.3.1 Reading skill problem 1.3.2 Language problem 1.3.3 Cultural background knowledge problem vii 1.4 Summary 10 Chapter 2: The current situation of teaching and 11 learning English for Finance at Hanoi Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics 2.1 Institution 2.2 The teachers and their methods of teaching 2.3 The students and their background knowledge 2.4 The teaching and learning English at HNVTCEM 2.5 General review of the course book “English for Finance” 2.5.1 Rationale for choosing the course book and objectives of the course 2.5.2 Topics, terminologies and grammatical structures 2.5.3 Characteristics of reading texts 2.6 Summary 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 16 17 Chapter 3: Research Methodology 18 3.1 Participants 18 3.2 The data collection methods 18 3.3 The data collection procedure 19 3.4 Data analysis 20 3.5 Summary 20 Chapter 4: Findings and discussion 21 4.1 Discussion of the results collected by means of the questionnaire 21 4.1.1 Students’ attitude towards ESP reading 21 4.1.2 Students’ perception on the purposes of reading lessons 22 4.1.3 Students’ focus when learning English for Finance 23 4.1.4 Students’ difficulties in learning reading English for Finance 23 4.1.4.1 In term of reading skills 24 4.1.4 In term of vocabulary 24 4.1.4 In term of grammar 25 viii 4.1.4 In term of cultural background knowledge 27 4.1.5 The causes for these difficulties in learning reading English for Finance 27 4.1.5.1 From the reading materials 27 4.1.5.2 From the teachers 27 4.1.5.3 From the learners 28 4.1.6 The learners’ expectation in term of materials 30 4.1.7 The learners’ expectation in term of methodology 31 4.2 Discussion of the result collected by means of the interview, classroom 32 observation and journal keeping 4.2.1 Teachers’ attitude towards ESP reading 32 4.2.2 Teachers’ opinion on the course book they are teaching 33 4.2.3 Teachers’ focus when teaching reading English for Finance 33 4.2.4 Teachers’ techniques to teach students in reading English for Finance 33 4.2.5 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading English for Finance 34 4.2.5.1 In term of cultural background knowledge 4.2.5.2 In term of methodology 34 35 4.3 Summary 36 Chapter five: Recommendations 37 5.1 37 Training students to become efficient readers 5.1.1 Improving students with different reading strategies 5.1.2 Encouraging students to develop extensive reading habits 5.2 Improving teachers’ techniques in teaching English for Finance 5.3 Developing English for Finance reading materials 5.4 Improving teachers’ professional knowledge about economics 5.5 Improving teachers’ teaching methodology 5.6 Summary 37 38 39 40 40 41 41 ix Part 3: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………… 42 Summary of the findings 42 Limitation of the study and suggestion for further study REFERENCEs………………… …………………………………………… 43 44 Appendices ……………… …………………………………………… Appendix 1: Phiếu điều tra nghiên cứu Appendix 2: Interview questions for teachers Appendix 3: List of topics in the course book Appendix 4: Unit 17: Financial statements Appendix 5: Translated version of the survey questionnaire for students I V VI VII IX Part 1: Introduction Rationale Learning English now is not only an interest but also a practical thing for many people Learning English means learning four related skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, reading has always received a great deal of attention This is understandable because English is taught and learnt in non-English environment, so reading is not only the important means to get knowledge but also means of further study What is more, by means of English, the learners can take it professionally in their future work as well as in reading their specialized materials It is exactly true for students of accounting At Hanoi Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics (HVTCEM), after finishing 120 general English periods, students of accounting department begin to take 60 ESP periods Being an ESP teacher of economics, the researcher has always been aware of the importance of developing reading skill for accounting students If students read well, they are able to handle subject-related written materials in English and to work with modern technology equipment But in fact, in spite of the effort of the teachers and students, the researcher finds her students‟ reading disappointing, which not meet the requirements of the college It is often seen that when poor reading results are reported, one tends to blame the students for having poor ability or for making insufficient effort However, the students are not always at fault With some years of English teaching experience, the researcher recognized that there are many other factors that affect the teaching and learning reading process such as inappropriate teaching methods and classroom techniques, inappropriate attitude of the teachers and learners towards the subjects, unsuitable teaching materials, etc For all the above reasons, the researcher would like to find out the areas of students‟ difficulties at HVTCEM when learning reading English for Finance and the cause of these difficulties It is also hoped that the study will make some suggestions for the teachers and learners to improve the teaching and learning English for Finance at college Aims of the study This study aims to investigate the difficulties in reading English for Finance of the second year students at HVTCEM To be more specific, the objectives of this study are: - To investigate the present situation of teaching and learning reading English for Finance so as to find out the teachers and learners‟ areas of difficulties when teaching and learning English for Finance - To suggest the ways to reduce these difficulties and help learners to improve their ESP reading skills It is hoped that the findings from this study will be some benefits to teachers and students at HVTCEM Research questions In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, two research questions were raised: - What are the teachers and learners‟ areas of difficulties when teaching and learning reading English for Finance? - To what extent the teachers‟ teaching methods help learners overcome the difficulties and improve their ESP reading skills? Methods of research With the aims of finding out the areas of the difficulties in reading English for Finance at HVTCEM, this study adopts a survey research To achieve this aim, the survey questionnaire is used as the main instrument to collect the needed data from the learners Besides, other instruments are also made used of such as the researcher‟s observation, journal keeping as well as interview questions with the other teachers of the College Scope of the study The study mainly focuses on some difficulties in ESP reading experienced by the second year students of Accounting at HVTCEM, and then suggests some techniques to help them overcome these difficulties and to improve their ESP reading skill Organization of the study This study consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion The first part includes the rationale for choosing the topic of the study, the aims, the research questions, the methods, and the scope of the study The second part comprises five chapters Chapter one deals with the theoretical background relevant to the research topic including Basic concepts about ESP, reading in ESP teaching and learning, difficulties in ESP reading Chapter two discusses the current situation of teaching and learning English for Finance at HVTCEM Chapter three presents the research methodology, ... College for Electro-Mechanics TÌM HIỂU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI KHOA KẾ TOÁN CỦA TRƢỜNG CAO ĐẲNG NGHỀ CƠ ĐIỆN HÀ NỘI M.A Minor Thesis Field: