Vietnam National University, Hanoi
University of languages and international studies
Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies
***
Nguyễn Thị Hà Quyên

TEACHERS AND THE FIRST YEAR BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION STUDENTS evaluaTIONS OF THE
MERITS AND DEMERITS OF THE ebp MATERIAL
MARKET LEADER IN HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY
(Những đánh giá của giáo viên và sinh viên năm thứ nhất khoa
Quản trị kinh doanh tr-ờng Đại học Hải Phòng
về giáo trình kinh tế 'Market Leader')

MA. Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Supervisor : Nguyễn minh Hà, M.A

HANOI - 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.3.6. Models for Materials Evaluation 11

1.3.7. Criteria for material evaluation 12
1.3.8. Materials adaptation 12
Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 15
2.1. The research design 15
2.2. The research methods 15
2.3. Research procedures 16
2.3.1. Document analysis 16
2.3.2.Survey questionnaires 16
2.4. The setting and the participants 18
Chapter 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 20

3.1. The Requirements of the Course 20
3.1.1. The Course Objectives 20
3.1.2. The Course Content 21
3.2. The Material Description 21
3.3. The Survey Results 24
3.3.1. The Suitability of the Material in terms of Objectives of the Course 24
3.3.2. The Suitability of the Material in terms of Content Requirement 28
3.3.3. Methodology 32
3.4. Major findings 37
3.4.1. The suitability of the Material in terms of Course Objectives 37
3.4.2. The suitability of the Material in terms of Content Requirements 38
3.4.3. The suitability of the Material in terms of Methodology 39
CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE MATERIAL ADAPTATION 41
4.1. Objectives Adaptation 41
4.2. Content Adaptation 41
4.3. Methodology Adaptation 42
Part C: CONCLUSION 45
1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale

At the same time as English became the key to the international currencies of technology
and commerce, it is married up naturally with the development of English courses for
specific groups of learners called ESP (English for Specific Purpose). Basing on the
guiding principle of ESP: „Tell me what you need English for and I will tell you the
English that you need‟ (Hutchinson, T & Waters, A 1987:8), it is very necessary and
important for BA students (Business Administration) in Haiphong University to gain good
knowledge of Business English, besides General English.

In order to improve the learners‟ motivation and thereby make learning better and faster,
any ESP course needs to select its own teaching materials that satisfy the learners‟ wishes,
needs, interests and demands. Among the varieties of published textbooks, „Market Leader
Elementary‟ has been the first time in use as the official textbook for the first year
Business Administration students in Haiphong University. There were not any study to
investigate the appropriateness and inappropriateness of „Market leader Elementary‟ to the
certain teaching – learning context in Haiphong University. Hence, this led the writer to
choose the study titled:
“Teachers‟ and the 1

adaptation.

4. Scope of the study

Due to the limited time, knowledge and experiment, it is impossible to mention deeply all
criteria of materials evaluation, such as audience, objectives, contents, methodology, the
cultural bias, the authenticity, etc. Therefore, only the three criteria including objectives,
contents and methodology would be focused.

5. Research questions

The study is carried out with an attempt to find out the answers to the following questions:
- Does the book Market Leader for the 1
st
year Business Administration students meet
the requirements of the course in terms of audience, objectives, content and
methodology?
- What should be done to help improve the book?

6. Methods of the study

In order to achieve the aims the reliable answers to the questions mentioned above, the
combination of the following methods are involved: 3

- Survey questionnaires were designed to collect data from the BA teachers and students
in Haiphong University towards their EBP material evaluation.
- Informal interviews made teachers and students comfortably express their ideas, so the


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. An overview of English for Business Purpose (EBP)

1.1.1. English for Specific Purpose (ESP)

Many authors have offered their definitions and characteristics of ESP in their studies,
namely Hutchison and Waters (1987), Strevens (1988) Robinson (1991), Widdowson
(1983), Charles (1994 and 1996), Dudley- Evans and St John (1998).

Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters (1987) states that ESP must be seen as an approach not
as a product. ESP is not a particular kind of method or methodology, nor does it consist of
a particular type of teaching material. It is an approach to language learning, which is
based on learner need. ESP has paid attention to the question of how people learn, focusing
instead on the question of what people learn. Although there are different approaches to
ESP, the authors share the same ideas that: ESP is designed to meet specific needs of the
learners; ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the disciplines it
serves; ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, and register), skills, discourse
and genres appropriate to the activities.

According to Robinson (1991:3-4), ESP can be classified into two main types according to
whether the learner requires English for work/training (EOP/EVP/VESL: English for
Occupational Purposes/ English for Vocational Purposes/ Vocational English as a Second
Language) or for academic study (EAP : English for Academic Purposes which is taught
generally within educational institutions to students needing English in their study).

Duddley – Evans and St John suggest the flowing absolute characteristics and variable
characteristics.
Three absolute characteristics are :

such as business, finance, accounting and banking has more in common with the study of
other EAP disciplines

The characteristics of EBP can be seen from the following pie chart

6

Chart 1: Characteristics of EBP (Ellis & Johnson,1994)

The most important characteristic of exchanges in the context of business meetings,
telephone calls, and discussions is a sense of purpose. Users of Business English need to
speak English primarily so that they can achieve more in their jobs. Besides, there is a
need for an internationally accepted way of doing things so that people from different
cultures, and with different mother tongues, can quickly feel more comfortable with one
other. Next, information has to be conveyed with minimum risk of misunderstanding, and
the time for processing needs to be short.

1.2. Materials in language teaching and learning.

1.2.1. Definition and roles of Teaching Materials


and the later in-house materials by Robinson (1991). It remains controversial among ELT
specialists to choose published textbooks or in-house materials because it can be said that
there are both good points and bad points in the selection of textbook or in-house material.
However, „there is no such a thing as a perfect textbook‟ (Brown, 1995: 166).

Consequently, no one can deny the important role of materials in language teaching and
learning. It is considered a good tool to improve the lessons. Among the diversified types
of materials, obviously, teacher has to make a good consideration on materials evaluation
to suit his learner need and language teaching-learning context.

1.3. Materials Evaluation

1.3.1. Reasons of Materials Evaluation

There are two main reasons for carrying out materials evaluation. Firstly, there may be a
need to choose among the materials available the most suitable one to use for a particular
situation. Secondly, there can be a need for materials evaluation to determine whether the
material chosen works for that situation after it has been used for a period. (Ellis, 1997). 8 In ESP, Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) mention that materials evaluation is an
indispensable part of the key stages in ESP process (see Figure 2.1)
evaluation needs analysis

assessment course design

teaching-learning

which begins with determining what information to gather and ends with bringing about
the change in current activities or influencing future ones”. In short, materials evaluation is
the process with the systematic appraisal of the value of materials in relation to their
objectives of the learners using them

1.3.3. Kinds of materials evaluation

There are three types of evaluation depending on the reasons for materials evaluation:

- Preliminary Evaluation: is carried out before a course begins in order to select the
most relevant and appropriate material for a particular group of learners. This kind of
evaluation is also to identify which aspects of the published materials needed adapting
to suit the purposes of the evaluators (Robinson, 1991; Ellis, cited in Tomlinson, 1993)

- Formative Evaluation: normally takes place while the course is on-going and the
findings can suggest modifications for future use. - Summative evaluation: is conducted at the end or some time after the course has run
and is very valuable for “durable courses” (Dudley-Evans, 1998). Ellis calls this kind
of evaluation retrospective evaluation. Besides, according to Richards (2001), a
summative material evaluation is to determine

In this thesis, material evaluation is implemented while the EBP material „Market Leader‟
is in use and it is hoped to give some recommendations for improvement. 1.3.4. Materials evaluators

Dudley – Evans & St. John (1998); Tomlinson (1998); Robinson(1991) and Richard


1.3.5. Sources of the data

Data for evaluation can come from different sources. According to Lynch (1996),
evaluation data can come from a variety of sources such as students, instructors,
administrators, evaluators, and others who interact with the program. Kenedy (cited in 11

Robinson, 1991) indicated that, in the case of ESP, if participants are given “a share in the
responsibility for its success”, the success of evaluation is even more ensured.

1.3.6. Models for Materials Evaluation

Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters (1987) recommend the four main following steps which
can be presented in the following model

Define Criteria
On what bases will you judge
materials? Which criteria will be
more important? Subjective analysis
What realizations of the criteria do
you want in your courses?

Objective analysis
How does the material being

layout/graphic, accessibility, linkage, selection/grading, physical characteristics,
appropriacy, authenticity, sufficiency, cultural bias, educational validity,
stimulus/practice/revision, flexibility, guidance and overall value for money.

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) suggest the following checklist:

- Audience: the learners (ages, sex, study/professional fields, status with respect to
professional fields; knowledge of English, of areas of work or study and of the world;
educational background, interest and so on)

- Aims: aims of the course and aims of the materials.

- Content: language description, language points, proportion of work on macro-skill,
micro-skill, text-types, subject matter areas, level of knowledge, organization and
sequence of content.

- methodology: theory of learning, learners‟ attitude, kinds of exercises, teaching-
learning techniques, aids, guidance for teaching, the flexibility of materials.

- Other criteria: price, availability

1.3.8. Materials adaptation

Mc Donough & Shaw (1993) suggest 5 main techniques for adaptation.

- Adding: can be done by the technique of extending or expanding. Extending means
that “the techniques are being applied within the methodological framework of the 13

adaptation. They are omission, addition, reduction, extension, rewriting/modification,
replacement and re-ordering.
14

SUMMARY

In this chapter, we have looked at an overview of the basic concepts that relevant to the study.
English for Business Purpose, Materials in Language teaching and learning as well as Material
evaluation and adaptation are the very important and essential theories that are believed useful
for evaluation process.

As being said above, the research methods of the thesis are the combination of document
analysis, survey questionnaires and informal interviews.

- First, document analysis is an effective method to collect the data because it helps to
compare the appropriateness of the material and the course objectives, contents and
methodology.

- Second, survey questionnaires play the most important role in collecting data because
of many advantages. The participants have much more time to think carefully before
giving the answers than the interviews that require the immediate responses.
Furthermore, the participants are not afraid of telling truly what they think because of
indirect questions and the evaluator can collect ideas of many people at the same time.
However, some of the participants, unexpectedly, were not enthusiastic to finish the
questionnaires, so not all of the returned questionnaires are reliable enough.

16

- Last, informal interviews are good to support the two preceding research methods.
Informal interviews do not make the participants uncomfortable, so they are willing to
share their hope and opinions. Their information from the interviews combined with
the data from the two questionnaires is of great value for both materials evaluation and
adaptation. In short, the combination of these instruments in collecting data would make the findings
more reliable and accurate. Every instrument has its own advantages and disadvantages,

15 questions while questionnaires for students include 4 ones. The reason is one question
in questionnaires for teachers is used to ask about Teacher‟s Resource Book. Here, the two
questionnaires are composed entirely of closed questions in order to be convenient for the
participants to finish. All the open questions are concluded in the informal interviews. The
points of investigation are presented in the following Table:

Points of Investigation
Questions
in the
Questionnaires
1. The Suitability of the Material to the Objectives of the Course
Q1: Vocabulary enrichment
Q2: Students‟ abilities to do Tasks Required by the Course.
Q3: Language Points that help students to do the Tasks required by
the Course
Q4: Students‟ skills improvement after the Course
Questions 1, 2, 3, 4.
2. The Suitability of the Material to the Content Requirement
Q5: Proportion of 4 macro skills in the Material
Q6: Opinions on Vocabulary in the Material
Q7: Opinions on the Text-types in the Material
Q8: Opinions on Language Competence that help enable students to
achieve the aims of the Course
Questions 5, 6, 7, 8.
3. Methodology
Q 9: What teachers focused on
Q 10: Teachers – students‟ interaction patterns
Q11: Teaching aids
Q1 Q12: The usefulness of Teacher‟s Resource Book (For teachers only)
Q13: The usefulness of Practice File

That means their Basic English was of different levels; some of the students were good at
Basic English, but the others were not. Nevertheless, there was no classification of the
students‟ English competence. Besides, the available facilities for study only included
boards, chalks and cassettes; computers and projector were not commonly in use. As a
result, teachers had to overcome these difficulties to find out appropriate teaching methods
to attract their students. Through the informal interviews, it was hoped to take more
consideration on dividing smaller classes as well as classifying students‟ English level.

Next, all the BA teachers frankly shared though most of them achieved the degree of
Master of English, they did not have business experiences in real life; they were not 19

businesspeople before becoming BA teachers. They only studied by themselves through
books, newspaper and the Internet or shared knowledge with their colleagues, so all the
theoretical knowledge sometimes made them embarrassed and not self-confident enough
in teaching ESP. It is certain that they are looking forward to attending an ESP teacher-
training course.

Consequently, it is clear that the current EBP teaching and learning situation needs
improving a lot. The Faculty should pay more attention to the teachers and students‟ ideas
as well as offer an education reform to overcome these obstacles.



3.1.1. The Course Objectives

Market leader has been believed the course book that serves as a preparation step for the
students to enter into the workplace of EBP. Students are equipped with a large amount of
English vocabulary for business, which will surely be useful for them to deal with English
business documents. In particular, they will have good chances to practice the presentation
skill and build their confidence in public speaking. This course is designed in view of using
the learner-centered approach to develop communicative competence.

According to the course objectives set by the Faculty of English, at the end of the term, each
student should be able to:

 Acquire a large amount of English vocabulary for both General English and
English Business
 Improve their reading skills in order to comprehend English Business
documents.
 Join in pair work, group work & presentations confidently and constructively
 Develop their writing skill and self-study skills
 Raise awareness of life-long learning

EXPECTATIONS

These are the points students are expected to fulfill:
 Thorough preparation of the lesson before each class
 Effort to self-study (including group work activities)
 Participation in class, which includes both speaking up and listening.
 Access the internet for necessary information
 Honesty in doing both the oral and written tests.


3. 2. The Material Description

Market Leader elementary, as being said above, is the currently used book for the first year
students at Business Administration Department. The following consists of the main
descriptions of this book, book objectives, book contents and methodology.

- Market leader has been developed in association with the Financial Times, one of the
leading sources of business information in the world and it is made by David Falvey,
Simon Kent and David Cotton who have many years‟ teaching experience in business.