VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERISTY – HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES - PHAM HAI CHUNG HOW TEACHERS USE THE CURRENT ESP MATERIALS AT PUBLIC RELATION FACULTY, ACADEMY OF JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION NGHIÊN CỨU CÁCH THỨC GIẢNG VIÊN SỬ DỤNG GIÁO TRÌNH TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH TRONG VIỆC DẠY HỌC TẠI KHOA QUAN HỆ CÔNG CHÚNG, HỌC VIỆN BÁO CHÍ VÀ TUYÊN TRUYỀN M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 SUPERVISOR: TO THI THU HUONG, Ph.D HANOI - 2008 DECLARATION I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research and the substance of this thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for degree to any other univerisity or institution Signature Pham Hai Chung ABSTRACT This study is aimed at finding out how teachers use current ESP materials at Public Relation Faculty, Academy of Journalism and Communication It is organized as following: The study starts with the brief introduction of rationale, scope, methods and design of the study Originated from the learning teaching situation and through data collection and analysis at PR Faculty, Academy of Journalism and Communication, this study has been proposed and implemented The first chapter is literature review on definition of ESP, roles of teaching materials and ESP teachers, materials evaluation and materials exploitation A qualitative research with data collection procedures has been describled in the second chapter of this thesis: first, questionnaire information on the leaners’ attitude toward their textbook, supplementary and their teachers’ exploitation of current ESP materials, followed by in-depth interviews with two teachers in charge of teaching this course to find out their difficulites in exploiting current ESP materials and their suggestions to improve the situation The last chapter discusses some recommendations of methods for teaching the current ESP materials as well as the guide for the material users and designers to make better decisions on the improvement of the course for future use ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to send my thanks to all those who have helped to shape the ideas that have gone into this minor thesis First of all, i would like to convey my gratitude to Ph.D To Thi Thu Huong for her critical and constructive supervision, valuable guide and encouragement throughout my research It is impossible to numerate the number of tasks she has so kindly taken on I also would like to convey my sincere thanks to all my teachers of the post – graduate course, whose knowledge and enthusiasm are of great help to the achievement of my academic study I am grateful to teachers of Foreign Languages Faculty and all the students of PR faculty at Academy of Journalism and Communication for their cooperation, suggestions as well as assistance in the completion of this thesis LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS T1: Teacher T2: Teacher PR: Public Relation ESP: English for Special Purposes GE: General English LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table1: Techniques for adapting depending on teacher’s purpose and learning context Table 2: Topics of PR textbook Table 3: Teachers’ exploitation of teaching materials Tables 4: Teaching techniques teachers use in the class Chart 1: Learners’ opinion of the textbook Chart 2: Learners’ interest of supplementary materials TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I:LITERATURE REVIEW Definition of ESP Roles of teaching materials and ESP teachers .10 2.1 Roles of textbook 11 2.2 Roles of supplementary materials 13 2.3 Roles of ESP teachers 13 Materials evaluation 14 Materials exploitation 14 4.1 Reification of textbooks 14 4.2 Materials Adaptation 15 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY Participants and settings 19 Research methods 21 Data Collection Procedure .22 CHAPTER III: RESULT AND DISCUSSION The relevance of current ESP PR materials 24 The extent of teachers’ exploitation of current PR materials 25 2.1 Teachers’ exploitation of textbook 25 2.2 Teachers’ use of supplementary materials .27 Difficulties of the teachers in exploiting the current PR material 28 3.1 The difficulties of the teachers in using the textbook 30 3.2 The difficulties of the teachers in using the supplementary materials .31 Teachers’ suggestions to difficulties when exploiting the current ESP 31 4.1 Making some changes in the current textbook…………………………………….31 4.2 Increasing leaners’ interest in tasks and other activities by encouraging marks… 32 4.3 Designing variable tasks in the supplementary materials…………………………32 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………… 32 CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATION FOR TEACHING AND CONCLUSION Recommendation of methods for teaching ESP reading materials .34 Conclusion .37 REFERENCES INTRODUCTION Rationale As an international language, English nowadays plays an important role in academic studies, professional success and personal development in the world of economic integration and globalization The number of learners of English increases quickly day by day In fact, all courses of English usually start with the question “Why these learners need to learn English?” These courses are based on a perceived need of some sort Otherwise why would English find its way on to a school or college timetable: “someone at sometime must have decided there was a need for it” Most learners have realized their core need to learn English for their current or future job Thus, English for Specific Purposes has become more in demand than General English Public Relation, a new field in Vietnam, is still seen as more reactive than proactive The numbers of public relations agencies are still miniscule for a country with a population of over eighty million The only training place for PR has just been established for three years at the Academy of Journalism and Communication with the purpose of training a number of PR officers for the whole country in the new context of social and economic integration In training, materials are very important in teaching and learning Many types of materials can be used during the process of teaching and learning to provide basic knowledge to students and improve their knowledge about and skills in the subject matter In terms of training at the PR Faculty, as PR materials in Vietnamese are rather limited, ESP materials of PR is even more important for students of the PR Faculty Both teachers and students face many difficulties in teaching and learning ESP The most outstanding one is the design and development of PR materials for use in the PR ESP program The materials are developed solely by teachers of General English, Academy of Journalism and Communication while they should be jointly developed by an expert team comprising both teachers of English and teachers of PR As the Public Relation Faculty is a new one, the teachers teaching ESP course are young and inexperienced in this effort Additionally, all teachers are trained to be teachers of General English and they lack knowledge of PR and so they have to study by themselves when they teach ESP in Public Relations They make a great effort to help students improve their language skills by adapting the textbooks or teaching materials Students start learning ESP of PR at the fifth semester, so only 32 students learnt the first ESP course of PR Thus, there would be many questions to be answered about the effectiveness of this course My research, therefore, aims to study how the teachers at PR faculty use the current ESP material in order to suggest effective implications on teaching methods and ESP materials design at PR faculty Aims of the study: By carrying out this research, I would like to fulfill the following aims: 1- Investigating teachers’ use of the current PR teaching materials including the required textbook and the supplementary reading materials This aim is split into two sub-aims of: + finding out students’ opinions on their teachers’ exploitation of the current PR teaching materials; + finding out teachers’ reported ways of using PR teaching materials and their suggestions on how to make better use of the materials; 2- Proposing the implications for teachers so that they can make better use of the materials Research question This study is implemented to find answers to the following question: • How teachers use the current ESP PR materials? This question is broken down into three sub-questions: Do students think that their teachers use the current PR materials appropriately? What teachers say about their use of the current PR materials? What they suggest for better use of the materials? Scope of the study When they designed the supplementary materials, they just followed their sense and used them when they had time in class besides covering the textbook Teachers’ suggestions to difficulties when exploiting the current ESP 4.1 Making some changes in the current textbook This was the solution raised by Teacher for her situation: “For some long topic, I would order learners to read in advance at home before the class This will help to save time for other activities as well as other reading tasks” For Teacher 2, he chose to replace the tasks in the textbooks, that he prefers to design by himself 4.2 Increasing learners’ interest in tasks and other activities by encouraging marks This solution seems to be easy but is often forgotten by novice teachers Teacher said “I sometimes used this tip and it works I think i will often apply it in the next courses Learners may like or not like a topic, but a good mark encourages them a lot to the tasks or focus more on the lesson.” 4.3 Designing variable tasks in the supplementary materials To stimulate learners with reading lessons, the two teachers agreed to spend more time on designing the suitable supplementary materials with variable tasks combined with different reading skills Conclusion First, this chapter covers questionnaire data analysis It is convinced that this textbook is useful for learners in the term of knowledge and context of the text but not varied in the tasks It also revealed some problems in the teaching techniques as well as some factors from learners that affected the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process Second, the interview data focuses on the difficulties of the teachers in exploiting the textbook and the supplementary materials It can be seen that skills and strategies of reading play a key role enabling students to achieve the growth of language and specialist knowledge To motivate the learners, a material should contain : - Topics which are varied, meaningful and curiosity –evoking - Text-types that are at moderate level of difficulty with average length and on both popular science and semi-technical issues - Exercise –types that are plentiful, appropriate to the learners’ needs and texts, and helpful in developing reading skills and extra-linguistic strategies such as reasoning, interpretation and critical thinking CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATION FOR TEACHING AND CONCLUSION Recommendation of methods for teaching ESP reading materials This chapter consists of some recommendations of methods for teaching the reading materials to help teachers of PR faculty to improve their teaching based on the textbooks or design the suitable supplementary materials First of all, as a teacher they have to follow methods and principles underlying the teaching and learning process of general English These methods make no difference in the teaching of ESP Therefore, the techniques and strategies applied in GE classroom teaching can be usefully employed in ESP classrooms Dudley – Evans (1976:163-197) recommended some techniques to teach ESP as follows: • Variety: Exercises can be productive to develop further GE skills They also can be specialized types such as: - The Transcoding from texts to graphs or charts - The elicitation of non-verbal response to the information, for example labeling diagrams, completing charts or tables - Various form of written and oral production based on graphically – presented information These specialist-focused exercises usually induce learners’ motivation to despite their potential special problems, for instance terminology problem • Flexibility : The materials can be divided into two parts – the core and the supplementary in which the former provides basic concepts essential for the understanding of ESP materials whereas the latter can be altered to suit the learning situation by replacing teachers’ or students’ self – accessed texts • Learner-centeredness: Learners’ knowledge especially specialist knowledge should be consciously elicited as a teaching device With such a mathematical mind, technical students can employ effectively conceptual knowledge for language learning purpose They should be given opportunities to use the target language as a medium to extend their understanding of other scientific contexts in addition to their own special areas • Enjoyment: Learners want to exercises or join in any learning activity when they find something interesting, meaningful and enjoyable to implement They perform well as they feel at ease • Focus on teaching terminology: Technical terms can be defined in common –core language, ie General English and translated into learners’ mother – tongue when needed • Integrated methods: Help to enhance reading ability in various ways Hutchinson and Waters (1987) also proposed several popular techniques, which are applicable and effective to the teaching of ESP Beside the techniques that Dudley- Evans recommended above They gave some other listed as followed: • Gaps: Can be created as a thinking device that put learners in a meaningful and natural context asking them to think, reason for appropriate verbal or non-verbal reactions There are many types of gaps that can be exploited to facilitate learning: information gap, medium gap (i.e ability to transfer information from one medium to another), reasoning gap, memory gap (i.e ability to remember and reconstruct the information), opinion gap and others • Predictions: Learners employ their existing knowledge to predict what happens in a situation • Coherence: There should be the aim of each unit stated clearly and the procedure to achieve the goal should be coherent to the aim proposed • Preparation: Teachers should prepare lesson plan before the lecture and learners should be prepared to learn by providing them with warm-up and topic-introduction activities before going into the main content • Involvement: Learners should be made cognitively and emotionally involved in the lesson • Creativity: Exercises should encourage various personal responses to the questionnaire raised instead of one unique answer • Atmosphere: The relationship between teacher and learners should be established and maintained, in other words, a cooperative social climate should be built within the classroom This facilitates the teaching and learning process Conclusion English has become the need and requirement of any learner in the world for special purpose Principles, theories and methods of teaching and learning the language have been developed considerably On that development, ESP has been introduced with the distinguishing feature of relating the language and different specialist disciplines for various authentic purposes of the learners This trend is a revolution to engaging the language to real-life use, in other words, discrete needs of learners However, whether ESP learners gain success relies on numerous factors such as their background knowledge, their General English language proficiency, their level of motivation, and teachers’ language knowledge, teaching methods and experience, their understanding of content areas, and other factors such as atmosphere, physical conditions, authority attitude towards language development etc As a result, the learners’ change from learning General English to studying ESP should be a gradual process In other words, the course preparing students from GE learners to those learning ESP should be designed to focus on the transfer of GE skills and language knowledge into ESP learning, and on motivating learners through the introduction of a specialist discipline The empirical study in this thesis is aimed at finding out the ways the teachers used the current ESP materials of PR, and then give some more solutions as well as recommendation for their difficulties of teaching and give some ideas on designing the new materials for the future use Like in other research projects, limited time in the study done in this dissertation are inevitable First, it’s related to the matter of data collection Because, the first group of PR faculty is only 32 students to take this ESP course of PR, so the questionnaire was administered to a small group of the subjects (32 students) and the interview are carried out with two teachers in charge of this course Second, despite careful consideration and great attempt into data analysis and discussion, the interpretation and implication from the quantitative and qualitative data might be incomprehensive due to inexperienced researchers made them BIBLIOGRAPHY Dudley – Evans, T and M.Jo st John (1998) Development in ESP Cambridge: CUP Dudley – Evans, A &C.C Shettlesworth &M.K.Phillips.(1976) “The ESP materials of the university of Azarabadegan, Tabriz, Iran”, in J.C.Richards (Ed) Teaching English for Science and Technology (pp163197) Singapore: SEAMEORegional Centre Dudley – Evans, T & M.Jo st John.(1988) Developments in English for Specific Purposes: A multi – disciplinary approach Cambridge Univeristy Press UK Dudley – Evans, T.(1997) Plenary Address on Recent Developments in ESP Delivered at the Japan Conference of English for Specific Purposes, University of Aizu, Japan Clark and Starr (1986) Secondary and middle school teaching methods.Macmillan NY and London C.J Brumfit(1988) ESP in the Classroom: Practice and Evaluation Modern English Puclications in association with the British Council ELT documents: 112 - The ESP Teacher: role, development and prospects The Britisih Council ELT Documents: 117 - Common Ground: shared interests in ESP and Communication Studies Pergamon Press in association with the British Council Waters.A.(ed.) Lancaster Practical Papers in English Language Education Pergamon Press (Vol 5.1982) Jack C.Richards (2001) 30 years of TEFL/TESL: A personal reflection SEAMEORegional Centre Singapore James S.Measell.(1990) Teaching the introductory public Relations course: a communication perspective ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills Jo McDonough.(1984) ESP in Perspective Collins ELT: London and Glasgow Gregory James (ed.)(1984) The ESP Classroom – Methodology, materials, expectations University of Exeter Holme.R.(1996) ESP Ideas Longman Hutchinson, T & Waters A.(1987) English for Specific Purposes: A learner-centered approach Cambridge University Press UK Madsen,H.S & Bowen ,J.D (1978) Adaptation in Language teaching Rowley, MA:Newbury House Publishers Marshall, C and Rossman, G.B (1999) Designing qualitative research (3rd ed.) Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Nunan D.(1991) Language Teaching Methodology Prentice Hall Nunan.D (ed).(1992) Collaborative language learning and teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Pauline.R.(1991) ESP Today Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd Strevens (1988) ESP after twenty years: A re-appraisal In M.Tickoo (Ed) ESP: State of Arts (pp - 13) Singapore: SEAMEORegional Centre Tomlinson.B.(2001) Materials Development in Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press UK To Thu Huong & Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh.(2006) ELT Methodology III Course book & recommended reading Vietnam National University.Hanoi Willy A.Renandya.(2003).Methodology and materials design in language teaching SEAMEO Regional Language Center Appendix 1: Interview transcription Transcription interview with teacher I: Did you follow the 3-stage process of reading task? T1: First I followed these stage However, gradually,I think they get bored with the tasks in the textbook although the knowledge and the content of the text is useful and interesting, but the tasks designed is not encouraging learners and not varied That’s why they are lazy to it as well as follow 3-stage process of reading tasks I know that for every ESP course, teachers always face a lot of difficulities Could you share with me about this experience? Sure You know for the four years at this academy, most of their subjects are carried out in Vietnamese, so they not have much chance to improve their English You mean this leads to the fact that their English skills esp their reading skills are not well enough for your class Yes, i think so How about other difficulites? Uh, and the class conditions Really obstacles my teaching I want to apply more teaching techniques in the class but the condition is not convenient Students find it uncomfortable to work group in a crowded table, more difficult to move or turn backward to discuss with each other I sometimes give up this kind of activities See The textbook is not varied in the tasks and activities, which make me often design the task and other activities by myself It really takes time They are the first group to take this ESP course of PR, so I think my supplementary materials need to be changed much In this texbook, is there any topics that you feel difficulties for your third-year students of this major? That’s interesting to talk to your about this problem There are two topics unfamiliar with students Here they are…When I teach these two units, I face a lot of challenge, first to understand them in Vietnamese and then explain to students If they study before, some terminology will be easy for them to get known Your students said to you they did not study those issues before in their major subjects in Vietnamese Yes, they said in the seventh semester Do you have any suggestions to improve your situation? I thought too much after teaching the first ESP course of PR For some long topics, I would order learners to read in advance at home before the class This will help to save time for other activities as well as other reading tasks.Additionally, i would some more activities to attract students’interest And if possible, i need the cooperation with PR faculties to design the new textbook with more suitable tasks and activities for the students as well as the list of the topics given in this textbook Transcription interview with teacher 2: I: As the information I collected the data from the questionnair, it can be seen that no student chose the skimming for the main ideas and scanning for specific information in supplementary materials I would like to know your idea T2: I adapted this reading skills in the tasks of textbook not in the supplementary materials What are the difficulties you face when teaching reading EPS materials for this group? Sometimes it challenges me a lot to design the tasks of the supplementary materials for learners to balance between some with good English skills including reading skills and others That’s why I often see the unsatisfied face of learners when given the easy designed reading tasks Could you raise some reasons for their different level of English ability? there maybe some reasons : they think in their mother-tongue, lack of opportunity to use English, their lack of confidence in reading English materials, weak vocabulary development, esp in technical English and difficulty in conveying the underlying intentions of a text Do you face any challenges to undertand about PR when teaching ESP course of PR? I myself should take a course of PR to understand the knowledge of PR, I am just teacher of General English I was assigned to teach ESP of PR So I need time to improve knowledge of PR first and then evaluate the ability of my learners to give suitable curriculum Your suggestions? I would like to choose to replace the tasks in the textbooks by myself How about increasing the interest of students: “I sometimes used this tip and it works I think i will often apply it in the next courses Learners may like or not like a topic, but a good mark encourages them a lot to the tasks or focus more on the lesson.” QUESTIONNAIRE In an attempt to investigate teachers’ exploitation of the teaching materials for the second – year students at Public Relation Faculty of Academy of Journalism and Communication, we would be grateful if you could spend time answering these following questions Your cooperation will be very useful to this research and to the improvement of the textbook for future use Thank you very much Please tick (v) or write in the space provided where appropriate: I PERSONAL INFORMATION Your age: Your gender: Male Female How long have you learnt English? ……………… II HOW DO YOUR TEACHERS USE THE CURRENT TEXTBOOK ( ESP reading material of Public Relation) 2.1 Which of the following purposes you achieve after learning this textbook (Please tick the appropriate box) To build up PR terms used in documents To read and understand concepts of PR To communicate with foreigners in English To take part in seminars on PR To translate books and newspapers from English to Vietnamese Others (please specify)…………………………………………………… 2.2 What you think of the textbook? (Tick the appropriate box) Very Useful Useful Not very useful Not useful at all 2.3 Are the text types in the textbook varied in style? (Tick the appropriate box) Yes No 2.4 Does the textbook include a variety of tasks and activities? (Tick the appropriate box) Yes No 2.5 In general, you think there are many new words in every unit? (Tick the appropriate box) Yes No 2.6 Which one is the most relevant to your textbook? (Tick the appropriate box) Easy to read and understand about different things in life Easy to read and understand to help me to understand more about my major Easy to read and understand and helps to improve both my English and my special knowledge Others (please specify)…………………………………………………… III ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ EXPLOITATION OF TEACHING MATERIALS 3.1 Please tick (v) where appropriate: Rarely Occasionall Often Most (1) (3) y (2) Teachers’ treatment of the reading section in the textbook Cover all reading tasks in the textbook as much as possible Follow the sequence of reading tasks in the book Adaptation of reading sections Leave out reading tasks in the book which are not suitable for you Adding more tasks from other sources to supplement some reading sections Replace reading tasks in the textbook by those from other sources Change reading tasks in the book to suit you Others (please specify)………………… the time (4) of 3.2 According to you, is it effective to label the 3- stage process for the reading tasks in the textbook? (Tick the appropriate box) Labels of 3-stage process Yes No “Pre-reading”, “While reading”, “Post - reading” 3.3 Which teaching techniques did your teacher use in class? (Tick the appropriate box) - Whole class work (students read and tasks in the textbook, teachers gives answers afterward) - Pair work - Small group work Individual work - Student presentation - Others (specify) … 3.4 How you like the supplementary materials your teacher uses? (Tick the appropriate box) I like them very much I like them but not very much They are OK I hate them 3.5 What types of comprehension exercises did your teacher use with the supplementary reading materials? (Tick the appropriate box) - True/False/Not given - Multiple choice questions - Comprehension questions - Gap-filling Matching - Inference practice Others (specify) … 3.6 What reading skills did your teacher practice with the supplementary reading materials? skimming for main ideas scanning for specific information guessing meanings of new words with the help of contextual clues, synonyms, antonyms and word information taking notes and summarizing predicting and previewing indentifying organisation of paragraph others (specify)… 3.7 Can you give suggestions on your teachers’ use of supplementary materials? (Tick appropriate box) Appropriate Delete Supplement Simplify Supplementary materials 3.8 Can you give more suggestions you want your teachers to to improve this course? ……………………………………………… Thank you! ... the supplementary materials When they designed the supplementary materials, they just followed their sense and used them when they had time in class besides covering the textbook Teachers’ suggestions... exploiting the textbook; the difficulties of the teachers in using the supplementary materials; Teachers’ suggestions to difficulties when exploiting the current PR materials The relevance of current... that their teachers use the current PR materials appropriately? What teachers say about their use of the current PR materials? What they suggest for better use of the materials? Scope of the study