VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

MAI THỊ THANH USING A CONTENT-BASED APPROACH TO TEACHING
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGLISH TO STUDENTS: AN
ACTION RESEARCH

Sử dụng phương pháp dựa vào nội dung để dạy tiếng anh chuyên ngành
môi trường cho sinh viên: Phương pháp cải tiến sư phạm M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

teaching English to students of environmental studies: an action research”
is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at
University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National
University, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any
other university or tertiary institution.
Ha Noi, September 2014
Signature Mai Thị Thanh

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my
supervisor, Dr. Trần Hoài Phương, for her valuable instructions, constructive
criticisms and her kindly encouragement during the development of this
thesis. Without her guidance the thesis would have been impossible.
My special thanks go to all professors and lecturers at the Faculty of Post-
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LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATION
1. TABLES
Table 1: English study background
Table 2: Students’ skills weakness
Table 3: Skills important for future job
Table 4: The usefulness of ESP
Table 5: Students’ ESP learning style
Table 6: Material input in the CBI approach
Table 7: t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means
2. ABBREVIATIONS
EAP: English for Academic Purposes
EGP: English for General Purposes
EFL: English as a foreign language
ELT: English Language Teaching
EOP: English for Occupational Purposes
ESP: English for Specific Purposes
GE: General English
CRCNRE: Central Regional College of Natural Resources and Environment
NRE: Natural Resources and Environment
M.A: Master of Arts
ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

1.5. Chapter summary 20
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 21
2.1. The participants and CRCNRE context 21
2.2. Methodology 24

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2.2. Action research procedure 27
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 30
3.1. The results of the pre-treatment questionnaire survey 30
3.1.1. Students’ English study background 30
3.1.2. Students’ perceptions of their weakness 31
3.1.3. Skills important for future job 31
3.2.1. Data collected from the post test 32
3.2.2 Data collected from the post-questionnaire (second part) 34
PART III: CONCLUSION 37
1. Conclusions 37
2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 37
REFERENCES 39
APPENDIX 1: PRE-TREATMENT QUESTIONAIRE I
APPENDIX 2: POST-TREATMENT QUESTIONAIRE III
APPENDIX 3: PRE-TEST V
APPENDIX 4: POST-TEST X
APPENDIX 5: SAMPLE OF LESSON PLAN APPLYING CONTENT-
BASED APPROACH…… XV
APPENDIX 6: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION SHEET XXV
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PART I: INTRODUCTION

memorized conversations easily and effortlessly, hardly any can produce at
length fluent variations from the basic materials, and none could talk on
unrehearsed topics without hesitation. In the trend of integration nowadays, a
country can hardly be isolated and self-sufficient.
As for the local context, since Vietnam became the 150
th
member of the
World Trade Organization in 2007, more and more foreign investors have
poured capital into Vietnam. English has become the ultimate means of
communication in foreign trade. To meet the society’s needs, Vietnamese
students must have sound English knowledge to work well in their jobs. They
need to be not only proficient in general English (GE) but also capable of
interpreting specialist contents. To help students achieve this aim, the choice
of appropriate learning materials in harmony with suitable teaching methods
is considered as a vital and primary concern for ESP teachers, language
program developers, and also curriculum designers. It was mainly this reason
that motivated the researcher to choose the thesis topic: ―Using a content-
based approach to teaching English to students of environmental studies: An
action research study‖
2. Purposes of the study:
This study aims at exploring the effectiveness of the application of a
content-based approach in teaching Environmental English studies at Central
College of Natural Resources and Environment.
The specific objectives of the study are:
- To examine the extent to which the attitude of students at Central College
of Natural Resources and Environment was changed following the application
of a content-based approach in teaching Environmental English in their class.

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- To investigate how effective the application of a content-based approach

a brief introduction to the action research design, the setting, participants,
instrumentation, and the action research procedure. Chapter Three presents
results and discussions, and implications of the results for the teaching of
Environmental English studies. Part C, CONCLUSION, summarizes the
findings and proposes possible solutions to the problems identified.
Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study are also discussed
in this part.

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Definitions of ESP and related concepts
1.1.1. ESP/EAP/EOP
To date, there have been a variety of views and definitions of English for
Specific Purposes (ESP) in contrast with General English (GE), such as those

several branches, as the tree on the following page clearly displays. As seen
in the ELT tree, 3 representatives of ESP include English for Science and
Technology, English for Business and Economics, and English for Social
Sciences. These are further divided into more specific ones such as EAP
(English for Academic Purposes) and EOP (English for Occupational
Purposes), which cover English for Medicine, English for Technicians,
English for Office Staff, English for Psychology, amongst others. Naturally,
this is a non-exhaustive list, since each of these ―Englishes‖ can still be
further specified, e.g. English for Medicine can be broken down into English
for Surgeons vs. English for Operating Theater Assistants, English for
General Nurses vs. English for Dentistry, etc.

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The Tree of ELT (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987:17)
1.1.2. English for non-majors, English for majors and ESP in Vietnam
In Vietnam, the term ―tiếng Anh không chuyên‖ (lit. English for Non-
majors or Non-language Majors) is used in contrast to ―tiếng Anh chuyên
ngữ‖ (lit. English for [Language] Majors), which has caused certain
confusion, especially when the term ESP was introduced.

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First, English for Non-majors refers to the English program delivered to
students of different disciplines who will use English as an additional
instrument for their studies and work, while English for Majors means the
English program for those who are going to work as English teachers or
interpreters, to name just two of the possible occupations graduates from this
program can assume. In other words, different uses of English will serve as
the livelihood to majors while English is only secondary to non-majors.
English for Majors can be offered to:

authors cited above.
1.1.3. English for non-majors and ESP in practice in Vietnam
However, interpretations of the concepts English for Non-majors and
ESP vary across different administrators and program designers who are
influential to course design, which results in differences in foreign language
training curricula and methodology. Prior to the 1990s, only a few could
develop appropriate courses for their students, e.g. Hanoi University of
Technology, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, or Hanoi University of
National Economics where relevant reading materials were compiled. In the
former Hanoi University (now Vietnam National University, Hanoi, or VNU
for short), a number of textbooks were developed in accordance with ESP
principles, for instance English for Economics by Lê Thụy Ánh, which
partially responded to essential needs of the students majoring in these
disciplines. In other institutions, however, due to the diversity of programs
offered, and the uncertainty of what particular jobs graduates are likely to
take, true ESP courses were hard to design and deliver. Most of what was
called ESP was actually hours of laborious struggle with subject-matter

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reading materials full of unfamiliar concepts and huge numbers of highly
professional terms to teachers and students alike.
As a result, the prevalent method then was grammar-translation, which
produced graduates who could read and translate materials of the subject they
majored in, yet their listening and speaking skills were fairly poor. This is
possibly the reason why non-majors tend to be described as ―deaf and dumb‖
when it comes to communication in English. Teachers of English to non-
majors consequently had to suffer as well: they may be regarded as second-
class compared to teachers of English to majors, and both could not be on the
par with subject-matter lecturers. Never had foreign language teaching,
including English teaching, been regarded as a science proper.

demonstrate the author’s efforts to associate language skills with their
communicative functions, e.g. descriptions of components and characteristics,
giving instructions, or explaining procedures. Again, like the ESP course on
Plants and Vegetation above, this syllabus does not make it clear how many
entries there should be in these IT students’ lexicon, or what makes IT
English register differ from English used in other areas of study. By and
large, these two syllabi are more EAP- than EOP-oriented.
Unlike the above, the ESP Listening-Speaking Syllabus for 3
rd
-year
Students of Hotel Management at Phuong Dong University by Trịnh Thị Nha
Trang (2004) tried to combine topics with communicative situations and
functions, with situations highly predominant. For example, Unit 2 – Hotel
Check-in contains listening and speaking activities in possible situations at
hotel front office, while Unit 4 – Food Service centers around various
situations which are likely to occur in restaurants. Topics in the course evolve
as a sequential journey from the time a guest books a hotel room, prepare to
depart, arrive at the hotel to the time he/she pays and leaves. EOP for hotel
management staff is the apparent orientation governing this course.

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Scanning several other M.A. theses with the same purposes of ESP
syllabus design, either in listening, speaking or reading, particularly those on
reading, which are directly relevant to our study, e.g. Đặng Thị Lệ Quyên
(2014), Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hà (2011), etc., we can see a similar topic-based
trend in their design: they start with topics, then proceed to the particular
reading sub-skills to be practiced; next come the linguistic items (lexical
resources, technical terms, grammatical structures, etc.) related to the topics
and reading sub-skills, and finally other tasks like translation or some
integrated skills of speaking, writing or listening based on the reading.

students need to make commitment to this new approach to language learning
(Stryker & Leaver, 1993). Typically, the materials in CBI are used with the
subject matter of the content course. It is recommended that ―authentic‖
materials are identified and utilized. There are two implications of
authenticity. One implication is that the materials are similar to those used in
native-language instruction; the other relates to the use of newspaper and
magazine articles and any other media materials ―that were not originally
produced for language teaching purposes‖ (Brinton et al., 1989). Some realia
such as tourist guidebooks, technical journals, railway timetables, newspaper
ads, or TV broadcasts are also recommended by many CBI practitioners
(Richards & Rodgers, 2001).
CBI in language teaching has been widely used in a variety of different
settings since 1980s such as English as Specific Purpose (ESP) Programs for
Students with limited English Proficiency (SLEP), Language for Specific
Purposes (LSP), immersion programs, and ESL/EFL Language Programs.
Since CBI refers to an approach rather than a method, no specific techniques

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or activities are associated with it. At the level of procedure, teaching
materials and activities are selected according to the extent to which they
match the type of program. Finally, CBI provides the opportunity for teachers
to match students’ interests and needs with interesting, comprehensible, and
meaningful content (Brinton et al., 1989).
1.2.2. Types of Content-Based Instruction
1.2.2.1 Theme-based Model
Theme-based language course is structured around topics or themes.
Major principles underlying theme-based model contain automaticity,
meaningful learning, intrinsic motivation, and communicative competence
(Brown, 2001). Its primary purpose is to help students develop second
language competence within specific topic areas. The topics chosen can be

be transferred to other disciplines. The adjunct model is suitable for high
intermediate to advanced levels (Brinton et al., 1989).
In summary, these three models of CBI share a number of common
features. First, authentic tasks and materials are used in the three models.
Second, they all share the principle that helps students deal with the content
materials. On the other hand, they also differ in several ways, including the
course aim and learning objectives, instructor’s roles, students’ proficiency
levels, and evaluation approaches.
1.2.3. Theme-based model in designing ESP material
Brinton et al. (1989) indicate that theme-based courses constitute the
most common model in CBI thanks to its relative lack of complexity for
implementation. In the theme-based model, selected topics or themes provide
the content for students to learn. Themes are the central ideas that organize
major curricular units, so they have to be chosen to be appropriate to students’

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academic and cognitive interests and needs. Moreover, materials in theme-
based language instruction are usually teacher-generated or adapted from
outside sources.
For Eskey (1997), theme-based instruction adds a missing dimension to
traditional approaches to language syllabus design. Where both form-based
and notional/ functional syllabi focus on rules, rather than on real
communication, theme-based language courses give learners an interesting
subject to learn or communicate about. Language is used to explore content,
and language growth emerges as students need to comprehend or produce
language relating to content. Theme-based CBI is particularly appealing in
this respect because teachers can use almost any content materials that they
feel their students will enjoy. Brinton et al. (1989) indicate that authentic
materials with simplified language are of great choice with an attempt to
integrate the topic into the teaching of all language skills. Moreover, Grabe

assistance from content teachers. Additionally, language teachers can choose
a content subject that they are familiar with to instruct. Do not try to teach all
subject matters, that is, language teachers should start small. Finally, language
teachers can attend professional development workshops to let themselves
have second, third, or even fourth profession.
Another problem associated with CBI is that language teachers are too
concerned with content area teaching and neglect teaching related language
skills. Language teachers seem to forget the main purpose of CBI is to
enhance language development though content areas rather than content
learning per se. If language components are missing, it cannot be called CBI.
The language learning aspect should have equal priority with the content
learning facet in CBI (Cristopher, 1996).