A study on congruence between ESP course objectives and students’ needs at business management

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

Vietnam Forestry University offers English for Environmental Science which is a

compulsory course for the third year students of Business Management Department. The

course book was compiled by teachers at Foreign Language Department and has been

published only for students of the university since the academic year 2005 – 2006. During

the academic year, around 200 students of the third year study this course. The researcher

had the opportunity to teach English for Environment Science to those students half of

academic year.

But do all ESP course designers try to gain insight into learners’ perceived needs,

wants, and lacks? “Teachers may rely more often on intuition when making course

planning than on informed assessment of learners’ needs” (Barkuizen 1998, Spratt 1999 as

cited in Davies 2006).

Since certain chapters of the books seem to have been designed without involving learners

in the course design process, it is quite likely that they may not reflect the needs and

interests of any particular learner groups. The readymade book is prescribed for all

students of any background of English; it is the responsibility of the ESP practitioner to

evaluate the congruence between the ESP course objectives and learners’ needs and to

make any adaptation suitable to better enable learners to learn effectively and meet the

learners’ needs.

1.2 Rationale

From the early 1960's, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to become

one of the most prominent areas of EFL teaching today. With the globalization of trade

and economy and the continuing increase of international communication in various fields,

the demand for English for Specific Purposes is expanding, especially in countries where

English is taught as a Foreign Language. In Vietnam, the ESP movement is a young and

developing branch of EFL. ESP has shown a slow but definite growth over the past few

years. Its development is reflected in the increasing number of universities offering BA and

MA in ESP (e.g. Hanoi University) and in the number of ESP courses offered to overseas

students in English speaking countries. In particular, increased interest has been spurred

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since Vietnam opened its doors and recently entered WTO with a lot of well-paid job

opportunities for English competent employees. This has led to a rapid growth in English

courses aimed at specific disciplines, e.g. English for Forestry, in place of the more

traditional 'General English' ones.

Even though ESP courses have become popular recently in Vietnam and many

institutions and universities offer ESP courses for senior students, for years ESP courses

are given with already made books or ESP materials compiled without students’ needs

analysis. Such approach fundamentally ignores the learners’ personal interests. This often

leads to low motivation in their English studies and, in turn, poor performance later when

they use English in their future profession.

In response to these problems, it is important that university English faculties

need to design or adapt ESP courses in the way that students’ needs are paid attention to.

This means that ESP course objectives should be congruent with learners’ needs and

therefore best prepare learners for future professional communication. However, to do

this, it requires a complete understanding what are students’ needs and ESP course

objectives. How can teachers develop a new course whose objectives congruent with

learners’ needs? Where should they start? What are the ways that best find out students

needs? What are the objectives that can best congruent with students’ needs? What should

be included in an ESP course? These are some of the questions that ESP course designers

or ESP instructors should answer and they help to improve the quality of the ESP courses.

This is the reason that inspired me to conduct this study in a hope that the study can help at

least improve the quality of ESP course at Business Management Department of Vietnam

Forestry University.

1.3 Aims of the study

The writer intends to centre this study on the following major aims:

 To find out learners’ needs (third term students who are studying ESP course at

Business Management Department of Vietnam Forestry Industry).

 To study ESP course objectives of English for Environmental Science book

designed by teachers at Foreign Language Department to be applied for third year

students at Business Management Department of Vietnam Forestry University;

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 To investigate the congruence between the ESP course objectives and learners’

needs in Vietnam Forestry University;

 To suggest any adaptation suitable to better enable learners to learn effectively and

meet the learners’ needs.

1.4 The scope and the significance of the study

This study cannot cover all the aspects of needs analysis and course objectives.

The study just investigates the stated ESP course objectives in the ESP materials, the book

English for Environmental Science, designed by teachers at Foreign Language Department

and tries to find out learners’ needs at Business Management Department of Vietnam

Forestry University.

The subjects of the study are the third-year students at Business Management

Department of Vietnam Forestry University. The current ESP reading textbook is “English

for Environmental Science”.

The findings of the study will hopefully serve as a back-up for the improvement

of the ESP syllabus. Practically, those findings are believed to be beneficial to teachers,

course designers as well as students at Business Management Department of Vietnam

Forestry University.

1.5. The overview of the study

The study comprises four chapters: Introduction, Literature Review,

Methodology, Data analysis and Findings, and Recommendations and Conclusion.

Chapter 1; Introduction, provides information on the background to the study, the

rationale, the aims as well as the scope and significance of the study and the outline of the

study.

Chapter 2, Literature Review, reviews the literature related to three main areas.

First, it is a brief overview of different writers’ opinions on ESP. Second, It looks at the

theory of course objectives. And finally, theory of needs analysis and related issues are

discussed.

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Chapter 3, Methodology, Data analysis and Findings, includes the research

questions, the description of the subjects, and the description of data collection

instruments, and the findings of the study.

Chapter 4, Suggested adaptations and Conclusion, presents the writer’s

suggestions for adaptation suitable to better enable learners to learn effectively and meet

the learners’ needs. After that, there will be the conclusion of the thesis.

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