A study on second-year navigation students'
difficulties in learning ESP vocabulary at
Haiphong Poli-technical College

Trần Thái Sơn

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. M.A. Mai Thị Loan
Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: ESP vocabulary takes an initial and significant role in acquiring maritime English.
To capture these terms properly, navigation students need to attain not only the words
themselves but also their specific uses on board the vessels. During the lessons and tests,
there have appeared facts that students cannot remember maritime vocabulary easily and use
it effectively. In addition, they seem to encounter some particular obstacles in learning the
specific words.
This study is carried out among the second-year navigation students at the Faculty of
Navigation, Haiphong Poly-technical College. Some of the students’ major difficulties are the
ESP vocabulary pronunciation and meanings, inappropriate materials, and lack of effective
strategies for learning ESP vocabulary. The causes of these difficulties are the lack of GE
knowledge, difficulties in teaching ESP words and lack of learner autonomy.
Some suggested solutions have been drawn out to overcome these difficulties. These
solutions help enhance the necessary GE knowledge, develop resources for ESP vocabulary
teaching and learning, encourage the development of effective vocabulary learning strategies,
develop the effective ESP vocabulary teaching and encourage students to form their learning
autonomy.
The result of this study aims at introducing effective and appropriate ways of teaching ESP
vocabulary, and providing students with appropriate methods so that they can build their
desired ways of learning words and better their maritime English.

2
5. Significance of the study
3
6. Design of the study
3
Part 2: Development
4
Chapter 1: Literature review
4
1.1. English for Special Purposes
4
1.1.1. Definition of ESP
4
1.1.2. Classification of ESP
5
1.1.3. Maritime English
6
1.1.4. The requirements for ESP teachers
6
1.2. Terminology
7
1.2.1. Definition of terminology
7
1.2.2. Characteristics of terminology
8
1.3. Vocabulary
8
1.3.1. Definition of words
8
1.3.2. Classification of words

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1.5.5. Evaluating the vocabulary component of course books
15
1.5.6. Teaching vocabulary explicitly through a range of activity types
15
1.5.7. Developing resources for vocabulary teaching
15
1.6. Summary
15
Chapter 2: Methodology
16
2.1. Context of the study
16
2.2. Research question
16
2.3. Subjects of the study
17
2.4. Data collection instruments
17
2.4.1. Questionnaire
17
2.4.2. Test
17
2.4.3. Interview
18
2.5. Data collection procedure
18
Chapter 3: Data analysis, major findings and suggested solutions
19
3.1. Data analysis

35
3.3.4. Developing the effective ESP vocabulary teaching
36
3.3.5. Encouraging students to form their learning autonomy
36
Part 3: Conclusion
37
1. Summary of the study
37
2. Limitations of the study
38
3. Suggestions for further study
38
References
39
Appendices
I
Appendix 1: Questionnaire
I
Appendix 2: Test
IV
Appendix 3: Answer keys to the test
VII
Appendix 4: Interview questions for ESP teachers
VIII
GE:
General English
UK:
The United Kingdom
USA:
The United States of America

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Words take an important part in our daily social and occupational communications.
With teaching and learning English, especially English for Specific Purposes, words
appear as the materials and products of these procedures. McCarthy has stated that “no
matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successful the sounds of L2
are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2
just cannot happen in any meaningful way.” (1990: viii)
When working as seamen on board the vessels, especially multi-lingual ones, the
Vietnamese seafarers need sufficient knowledge of navigation and good competence of
English of at least an elementary level. Students at the Navigational Faculty of Haiphong
Poly-technical College will become future seamen on board, thus good competence of
English language is necessary for them in both speaking and listening. They have to learn
technical terms about deck equipment, departure, anchoring and pilotage. It is also required
that they should learn specific vocabulary such as the weather station, magnetic compasses,
ventilator, funnel, gyro compasses, GPS, steering stand, navigation lights, engine order
telegraph, control consol, navigation table, communication station, emergency equipment,
anchor, hatch, hawser, and other appliances on board the vessels. They also need to know
English vocabulary about operations in hoisting gangways, mooring ropes, cargo handling,
and keeping watches, hear steering orders and repeat them for confirmation before
operation.
The second-year students of the Navigation Faculty of Haiphong Poly-technical
College start to learn maritime English at the beginning of their third term. Their course
book is English I for Navigation Students, which has been composed and brought into use
for one course. Through my teaching experience, I have discovered that there have been
some obstacles while the students have been learning their maritime English vocabulary,
although the teachers have tried their best to instruct them. After a number of periods
learning maritime vocabulary, the learners seem unable to remember correct words or to
use the right one for their learning purposes. Some admit that they wish to widen their
quantity of vocabulary but they lack suitable ways.

help find out the students’ actual difficulties in learning maritime English vocabulary.
Besides, an interview with four other teachers teaching English I for Navigation
Students to the second-year students is also conducted. Each teacher is given four
questions and their answers will contribute to consolidating our findings about the
students’ difficulties in learning ESP words and suggesting some solutions to overcome
those difficulties.

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5. Significance of the study
Theoretically, this study will help us to uncover the second-year students’ obstacles in
learning the maritime vocabulary. A clearer look into the reasons for these difficulties will
also be gained, and some suggested solutions will be drawn out.
Practically, it suggests a certain ways in teaching and learning vocabulary to help the
students overcome these difficulties so that they can be confident not only in learning
maritime English vocabulary but also in using these words for their future jobs on board
seagoing vessels.
6. Design of the study
The thesis consists of three main parts as follows:
Part 1: Introduction
This component of the study includes the rationale, aims, scope, methods, significance
and design of the study. The readers are provided with the reasons for choosing the
research issue, the research questions, the boundary of the investigation, the ways to carry
out the study and its organization.
Part 2: Development
This part contains three chapters.
Chapter 1 reviews some theoretical background for this study. It focuses on the English
for Special Purposes, vocabulary, terminology, factors affecting learning vocabulary, and
strategies to enhance students’ vocabulary.
Chapter 2 introduces the methodology of this study. It provides some necessary
information about the context of the study, research questions, subjects of the study, data

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