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

NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC TUYẾT

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ESP VOCABULARY
TO SECOND – YEAR STUDENTS
AT HANOI COMMUNITY COLLEGE: A CASE STUDY
NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC DẠY TỪ VỰNG
TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI
TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CỘNG ĐỒNG HÀ NỘI

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English methodology
Code: 60.14.10

Hanoi – 2010


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


1. Rationale ………………………………………………………………………………..1
2. Objectives of the study …………………………………………………………………2
3. Research questions ……………………………………………………………………..2
4. Scope of the study ……………………………………………………………………...2
5. Methods of the study …………………………………………………………………...3
6. Significance of the study ……………………………………………………………….3
7. Design of the study ……………………………………………………………………..3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………………………………...5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………………..5
1.1. ELT vocabulary teaching ……………………………………………………………5
1.1.1. What is vocabulary? …………………………………………………………………5
1.1.2. Selecting vocabulary ………………………………………………………………...5
1.1.3. What need to be taught? ……………………………………………………………..6
1.1.4. Teaching vocabulary ………………………………………………………………...6
1.1.4.1. Presentation techniques ……………………………………………………………6


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1.1.4.2. Practice and consolidation techniques ……………………………………………..7
1.2. ESP vocabulary teaching …………………………………………………………….7
1.2.1. What is ESP vocabulary? ……………………………………………………………8
1.2.2. Needs analysis in ESP vocabulary teaching …………………………………………9
1.2.3. Important aspects of ESP vocabulary teaching …………………………………….10
1.2.3.1. Word formation …………………………………………………………………..10
1.2.3.2. Word relations ……………………………………………………………………11
1.2.4. Teaching ESP vocabulary ………………………………………………………….12
1.2.4.1. Presentation techniques …………………………………………………………..12
1.2.4.2. Practice and consolidation techniques ……………………………………………12
1.3. Problems in conducting an ESP course ……………………………………………13

2. Suggestions to improve teaching ESP vocabulary to second – year students at HCC …38
3. Limitations and suggestions for further studies ………………………………………..39
REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………………………40
APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………………………...I
APPENDIX 1 ……………………………………………………………………………….I
APPENDIX 2 ……………………………………………………………………………..IV


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ELT: English Language Teaching
ESP: English for Specific Purposes
HCC: Hanoi Community College


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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Teachers’ experience in teaching ESP …………………..………………………17
Table 2. Purposes of teaching ESP vocabulary……………………………………………18
Table 3. Teachers’ evaluation on the importance of phonetics, vocabulary and grammar in
ESP teaching ………………………………………………...……………………………18
Table 4. Teachers’ frequency of presentation techniques ………..……………………….19
Table 5. Teachers’ frequency of practice techniques ……………….…………………….20
Table 6. Teachers’ frequency of consolidation activities …………………………………20
Table 7. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary ...............................................21
Table 8. Teachers’ suggestions to improve their ESP vocabulary teaching …….………..22
Table 9. Students’ evaluation on the importance of phonetics, vocabulary and grammar in

which all decisions regarding content and methods are based on the learners’ reasons for
learning. It focuses on using English effectively in specific academic fields such as
business, law, medicine, sciences, etc. In teaching English for Specific Purposes, no one
argues that the scope of specialized vocabulary is a primary goal. As Robinson (1991:4)
stated the central role of vocabulary as carrier content in ESP: “It may often be thought that
a characteristic, or even a critical feature, of ESP is that a course should involve specialist
language (especially terminology) and content.”
However, up to now, teaching and learning ESP, particularly teaching and learning
vocabulary has still been far from satisfactory. With many similar characteristics and a
number of different features in comparison with General English, ESP is viewed as
something hard to teach for language teachers.
In the context of Hanoi Community College (HCC), students start to learn ESP at the
beginning of the second year. In fact, with a short duration of 30 class hours, one of the
most important aims of ESP course for these students is achieving basic ESP vocabulary.
However, with limited knowledge of vocabulary, it is hard for them to study. They often
learn vocabulary passively through their teachers’ explanation. In addition, there are too
many new words given in each lesson, too little time spent on memorizing and recycling
those words. Thus, there arises the need to increase the number of words they know, which
requires a great deal of help from the teachers. Meanwhile, the frequently used method to
teach vocabulary in class is to give the explanations and Vietnamese equivalents, then have
students do some kinds of vocabulary exercises and rarely give feedback to their students.


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As a result, the teachers are facing a number of problems during their teaching process,
which need to be identified and worked out as soon as possible to improve their vocabulary
teaching.
For all these reasons, I would like to conduct a research to find out the difficulties in
teaching ESP vocabulary to second-year students at Hanoi Community College and give

5. Methods of the study
The study is designed to use a combination of various methods to obtain its aims and
objectives. To begin with, an extensive of literature review is conducted, defining the
notions of vocabulary and ESP vocabulary; some important aspects of ESP vocabulary
teaching, some techniques currently used in teaching vocabulary and ESP vocabulary.
Then the major method used in the study is the quantitative one. That is all comments,
considerations, suggestions given in the thesis are based on the analysis of the statistic
from the survey questionnaires conducted with the teachers and students at HCC. The
results from the survey questionnaires are combined with course book assessment,
classroom observation, informal interviews and discussions with the teachers and students
at HCC.
6. Significance of the study
The significance of this research stems from the fact that vocabulary plays an important
role in teaching and learning ESP. This study emphasizes the need for finding out the
difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary and suggestions to improve the teaching and
learning ESP vocabulary. The results obtained in this study would be helpful to the
teachers and students at HCC as well as general audience, especially second language
teachers and learners who want to teach and learn ESP better. In addition, the findings
would be useful to researchers who want to do further research on this topic or extend this
knowledge to any other related fields of study. Finally, for ESP textbook writers it would
serve as a reference in the development of teaching materials necessary for successful ESP
teaching and learning.
7. Design of the study
The thesis is organized into three parts:
Part A: Introduction
This part presents the rationale, objectives, research questions, scope as well as
methods and significance of the study.


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kinds.”
It is, however, not easy to define exactly what a word is. So far, many linguists have
given out their different definitions of word.
In the view of the authors of The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics, “word is the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its
own in speech or writing”. It is difficult to apply this criterion consistently. For example,
can a function word like “the” occur on its own? Is a contraction like “can‟t” (can not) one
word or two?
Also in term of methodology, Penny Ur offered more clear and specific definition of
vocabulary by saying that “vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in
the foreign language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word:
a compound of two or three words or multi-word idioms” (Ur, 1996: 60).
In short, it can be concluded vocabulary is the total number of all the words that a
language possesses, including a single word, two or three word items expressing a single
idea and multi – word idioms of which meaning cannot be deduced from the analysis of
the component words but only understood in the sentences, or in contexts, etc.
1.1.2. Selecting vocabulary
The first step in teaching vocabulary is to determine what words to teach. They
should be useful. However, what is useful in one situation may be useless in another.
Therefore, the criteria given below depend on the particular teaching situation.


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Harmer (1991: 154) provides the following general principles of vocabulary
selection: the principle of frequency – words that are frequently used should be taught first,
the principle of coverage – words that comprise more things and have no just one specific
meaning are useful to be taught as first.
In addition to these principles, Gairns and Redman (1986: 59) provide also cultural
factors and the principle of need and level. Learnability and teachability are other criteria

It is also possible to use translation, however, as Harmer (1991: 162) suggests it is
not always the best way since it is sometimes difficult to find the appropriate translation of
the word and the process of translating does not encourage the manipulation with words
that is very important for the consolidation stage. At intermediate levels, we can use
discovery techniques. They employ the learner‟s previous knowledge and activate the work
with words. Discovery techniques together with using dictionaries and asking others
activities belong to more emphasised strategies that allow the learner more autonomy than
the above-mentioned techniques.
1.1.4.2. Practice and consolidation techniques
The aim of this stage is to store the new word in the long-term memory and to turn
passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. The practice should be carefully organized so
that the load of new lexis would not discourage the learner. In addition, it is important to
emphasize “that experiments on vocabulary seem to suggest that students remember best
when they have actually done something with the words they are learning” (Harmer 1991:
160). Consequently, there are many techniques that involve more than just repeating
vocabulary and that help to fix the new word in the learner‟s memory. To name some of
them: filling in gaps in sentences, matching words to other words, replacing words with
their synonyms or antonyms, memory games, paraphrasing, using words in sentences or
dialogues, role plays, discussions, picture stories, using prefixes and suffixes to build new
words from given words etc.
1.2. ESP vocabulary teaching


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In the previous section, we described the situation in ELT vocabulary teaching.
According to Kennedy and Bolitho (1984: 65), ESP vocabulary teaching has been also
neglected as ELT vocabulary teaching. ”Perhaps this is because of the difficulties involved
in teaching vocabulary rather than merely testing it” (Kennedy and Bolitho, 1984: 65).
Before the special aspects of teaching ESP vocabulary is discussed, we will first define

in some fields. Kennedy and Bolitho suggest that these terms “should arise, in context, in
the specialist classes and are not normally the teacher‟s responsibility” (1984: 57).
1.2.2. Needs analysis in ESP vocabulary teaching
“All courses are based on a perceived need of some sort. It is often argued that the
needs of the General English learner […] are not specifiable. In fact, there is always an
identifiable need of some sort.” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 50). What I would like to
emphasize here is Hutchinson and Waters‟ suggestion that “it is not so much the nature of
the need which distinguishes the ESP from General course but rather the awareness of a
need” to communicate in English (1987: 53). Therefore “if we had to state in practical
terms the irreducible minimum of an ESP approach to course design, it would be needs
analysis” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 54) which determines what skills needed. When
doing needs analysis, we should distinguish between target needs and learning needs.
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 55) target needs represent what the learner
needs to do in the target situation and involve necessities, are lacks and wants, whereas
learning needs represent what the learner are expected to do in order to learn.
When we make decision about what ESP vocabulary to teach, it is necessary to look
at the above-mentioned necessities, lacks and wants in more details. According to
Hutchinson and Waters, necessities can be understood as “what the learner needs to know
in order to function in the target situation effectively,” which in terms of vocabulary means
to know vocabulary which is “commonly used in the situation identified” (1987: 55).
However, it is not enough to identify the necessities. It is also necessary to define,
what the learner already knows. The learner‟s lack is then the gap between what he knows
and the target necessities. In terms of vocabulary it means to determine which of the words
that are commonly used in the identified situation are in the learners lexicon and which are
necessary to be taught.
So far, the objective aspects of the target needs were taken into consideration, but
also the learner has his own idea of his needs. Since the learner motivation is of high
importance in both the learning and teaching process, the learner‟s wants is the area that
the teacher has also to pay attention to when teaching ESP vocabulary. In short “if the
student does not perceive the vocabulary input to be useful it will be difficult to engage his

“noun strings” (Trimble, 1985: 130). Noun compounds consist of two or more nouns and
necessary adjectives (sometimes a verb or an adverb can be a part of noun strings). The
whole nouns string “expresses a ´single noun´ idea” and so long phrasing in texts can be
avoided (Trimble, 1985: 130-131). However, as Trimble points out, noun compounding is


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not common to all languages. Thus, both understanding and producing noun compounds
makes problems for many non-native students and to analyse them is useful to practise
(1985: 131, 163). “Compounds are usually formed from prepositional phrases or relative
clauses and many can be back-formed into one or the other of these” (Trimble, 1985: 131).
Trimble (1985: 131-135) states basic rules how to understand and produce noun
strings, and provides the following categories of noun compounds:
I. Simple: e.g. metal shaft = a shaft made of metal
II. Complex: e.g. liquid storage vessel = a vessel for storing liquid
III. More complex
IV. Very complex
The last two categories present difficulties also for native speakers and so these
“types of compounds are best left out of teaching plans, except, perhaps, for a few
demonstrations of their difficulty” (Trimble, 1985: 163).
1.2.3.2. Word relations
Kennedy and Bolitho stress that “words do not exist in isolation” (1984: 62) and so
they should be taught in context. Furthermore, “the meaning of a word can only be
understood and learnt in terms of relationship with other words in the language” (Gairns
and Redman, 1986: 22). In order to practise these word relationships the learners should do
activities involving synonyms (words with similar meaning), antonyms (words with
opposite meaning), hyponyms (subordinate terms), collocations, phrasal verbs (a base verb
and an adverbial particle) and exercises focused on some other types of relations (e.g.
cause and effect). Contextual clues is an exercise designed to practise word relationship

of synonyms or antonyms to explain the meaning of an unknown word. In order not to
discourage the learners, the teacher‟s presentation of ESP vocabulary should be interesting,
not complicated, motivating, memorable and amusing.
1.2.4.2. Practice and consolidation techniques
As Kennedy and Bolitho assert the process of the introduction of the systems of
vocabulary to the learners and teaching them to classify and guess the meaning of an
unknown word is linked with “the study skill of noting and ordering vocabulary for future
reference, and with decisions about the priorities of different items” (1984: 65). It means
that a student should be encouraged to think about whether the word is very important for
him and so an example in context would be useful or whether he just needs a short
definition to recognize the word next time (Kennedy and Bolitho, 1984: 66). Learners can
organize new items in different ways. However, since “words are not learnt mechanically,
as little packets of meaning, but associatively” (Morgan and Rinvolucri, 2004: 7), the most


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effective and favourite strategies in ESP vocabulary teaching are diagrams, mind maps,
word trees, grouping words by activity or process, by categories (building materials: stone,
sand, wood), by word families (to build, builder, building), by topic (at a building site),
synonyms or antonyms. “As organization is the key to memory, this is an important part of
teaching your students how to be efficient learners” (Gairns and Redman, 1986: 100) ESP
vocabulary can be practised by means of similar techniques used for practising ELT
vocabulary (See sub-section 1.1.4.2). Thus, the discussions and simulations focused on
working environment and technical issues (dimensions of a product, materials and their
properties, processes etc.) requiring the learners´ knowledge of ESP vocabulary are useful.
Written tasks involve writing reports and instructions for use, giving summaries from
technical articles, describing processes, filling in diagrams, describing graphs and tables, or
classifying items into lists etc. In addition, these days many students participate in various
competitions where they introduce their projects and so they may try to develop a brief

and Accounting, English for Banking and Finance, English for Business Administration,
English for Computers and Information Technology.
The overall curriculum of the College for vocational students lasts for 2 years in which
the time allocation for English constitutes a part of 120 class hours. The English course is
divided into stages. The first stage is for General English which accounts for 60 class
hours. Students are taught General English during the first and second terms in the first
academic year to achieve basic knowledge of English. The textbook chosen is Lifelines –
Elementary by Hutchinson, T. At this stage, the major aims are to develop students’ basic
communicative skills. The General English stage also serves as the stepping stone for
students to proceed to the ESP course. At the end of each term, students have to take a
written exam which include mainly grammar and vocabulary exercises.
The second stage is only 30 class hours for ESP. As mentioned in Part A (page 2), this
study is limited to the ESP for vocational students of Construction Department. The
English teaching materials used for them is the book “English for Architecture and
Construction”, which was compiled by the English teachers at the college. The ESP course
aims at providing students with a great deal of technical terms and developing students’
reading comprehension and translation. The texts and the exercises were designed in the
form of content - based syllabus rather than a task - based one. The exercises following
each text are often reading comprehension and grammar exercises. In fact, the sole focus of
the course book is reading while the other language skills are almost ignored.
2.1.2. The teachers


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At present, the English Division consists of seven official teachers. All of the teachers
graduated from universities of foreign languages and three of them have Master degree in
Vietnam. None of them has been trained in the English speaking countries. The teachers
are quite young (aged from 26 to 37) and have limited teaching experience. The number of
teachers is restricted while there are six departments at the college, all of which have

Year Students at HCC?
2.2.2. The participants
This study was conducted with the participation of 7 English teachers and 100 students
of HCC. The teachers of English at the college were all chosen for the investigation as all
of them have been teaching ESP. They are all female and have at least 2 years’ experience
in teaching ESP. The students were selected at random from four classes of Construction
Department. They were in the first term of their second year and had just finished ESP
course. They come from different provinces of the country and most of them are male.
Their age varied from 18 to 25 and their English learning background was different.
Data collection instruments
In this study, the main method applied is survey. Thus, the questionnaires to be
completed by teachers and students were the instruments to collect the data. The question
items were multiple choice, rating-scale, agree/ disagree and both close-ended and openended.
The questionnaire designed for the teachers consists of nine questions. It aims at
investigating the teachers’ background, their attitude towards ESP vocabulary teaching,
their vocabulary teaching techniques, especially their difficulties in the process of teaching
and their suggestions to improve ESP vocabulary teaching. (See appendix 1)
The questionnaire for the students consists of eleven questions. Due to the low level of
vocational students, the questionnaire was written in Vietnamese in order to make sure that
the students could not misunderstand the questions. The questionnaire served as a tool to
explore the students’ English background, their attitude towards ESP vocabulary learning,
their ways of learning ESP vocabulary, especially their difficulties in the learning process
and their suggestions to improve their ESP vocabulary learning. (See appendix 2)
2.2.4. Data collection procedure
In order to collect the data for the analysis, the questionnaire was delivered to each
teacher individually to ensure that they would give their own ideas and were not affected


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4

57%

4 – 6 years

1

14%

More than 6 years

2

29%

As can be seen from the table above, all of the teachers have taught ESP for at least 2
years, in which 57% have 2 – 4 years experience, 14% have 4- 6 years and 29% have
taught ESP for over 6 years.
Question 2


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Figure 1. Teachers’ experience in being trained on teaching ESP
29%
Yes
No
s
71%

D. To help students communicate with
foreigners

2

29%

To the question about the purpose of teaching vocabulary, more than one choice is
accepted. Thus, the results in Table 2 are presented in percentage that the options are
chosen.
The findings of this question indicated that a great number of the teachers (86%) pay
attention to ESP vocabulary teaching in the hope of helping their students read specialized
materials. Besides, 43% of them want to help students enrich their vocabulary. Only
minority of the teachers teach vocabulary with the purpose of helping students
communicate with foreigners and pass the exam (29% and 14% respectively).
Question 4 - Table 3. Teachers’ evaluation on the importance of phonetics,
vocabulary and grammar in ESP teaching