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

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NGUYỄN HOA HỒNG

DESIGNING AN ESP SPEAKING SYLLABUS
FOR ADMINISTRATIVE POLICE STUDENTS
AT INTERMEDIATE LEVEL
OF PEOPLE’S POLICE COLLEGE I
(Thiết kế chương trình nói tiếng Anh
chuyên ngành Cảnh sát Quản lý Hành chính
cho học viên hệ trung cấp trường Cao đẳng Cảnh sát nhân dân I)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2016


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

----------

NGUYỄN HOA HỒNG


i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the process of doing the research, I have received supports and
assistance from a variety of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my
supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lâm Quang Đông, for his insightful guidance,
constructive criticism and his whole-hearted encouragement without which the
thesis would not have been fulfilled.
I wish to express my special thanks to all my lecturers for their interesting
lectures, valuable comments and helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to all the
staff members of the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies who gave me valuable and
essential instructions to fulfill my thesis.
I would like to convey my great thanks to my colleagues and administrative
police students at People‟s Police College I for their invaluable feedback, useful
support and enthusiastic participation in this research.
Last but not least, I owe the completion of this study to my beloved family
who have given me their endless inspiration, support as well as sympathy
throughout my graduate program.

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ABSTRACT

This minor thesis was conducted with an attempt to design a suitable
supplementary material to teach ESP speaking skill for administrative police

imperative to have a supplementary speaking material with the aim to make up for
what they are now lacking. Besides, the target learners also express their
expectation in terms of the teaching and learning methods, speaking activities or
the time allocation of the ESP course. It is the useful data for the researcher to
demand all types of needs of the learners, which helps enhance the learners‟
inspiration in English lessons.

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Based on the findings, a proposed ESP speaking syllabus for administrative
police students is designed with the hope that it can bring many benefits for the
students as well as the teachers in the process of teaching and learning ESP
speaking at PPC I.

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CONTENTS
DECLARATION ..........................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... iii
CONTENTS .................................................................................................................v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................. viii
LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES ............................................................................ix
PART A: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................1
1. Rationale for the study .........................................................................................1
2. Aims and objectives of the study .........................................................................2
3. Research questions ...............................................................................................2
4. Scope of study ......................................................................................................3

2.2.1. Research questions revisited ....................................................................23
2.2.2. The participants ........................................................................................23
2.2.3. Data collection instruments ......................................................................24
2.2.4. Data collection procedures .......................................................................26
2.3. Chapter summary ............................................................................................27
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29
3.1. Data analysis ...................................................................................................29
3.1.1. Data analysis procedures ..........................................................................29
3.1.2. Data analysis from the interviews with the subject teachers ...................29
3.1.3. Data analysis from the interviews with the working administrative police
officers .....................................................................................................31
3.1.4. Data analysis from the questionnaires for the teachers of English ..........32
3.1.5. Data analysis from the questionnaires for the administrative police
students ....................................................................................................41
3.2. Research findings and discussion....................................................................50
3.2.1. Target needs .............................................................................................50
3.2.2. Learning needs .........................................................................................52
3.3. Chapter summary ............................................................................................52

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CHAPTER 4: THE ESP SPEAKING SYLLABUS FOR ADMINISTRATIVE
POLICE STUDENTS AT INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF PPC I..53
4.1. Objectives of the course ..................................................................................53
4.2. Structure of the syllabus ..................................................................................53
4.3. Teaching and learning methods of the course .................................................53
4.4. Time allocation of the course ..........................................................................53
4.5 The proposed speaking syllabus for administrative police students at
Intermediate level of PPC I ............................................................................54


ESP :

English for Specific Purposes

ELT :

English Language Teaching

EST :

English for Science and Technology

EBE :

English for Business and Economics

ESS

English for Social Sciences

:

EAP :

English for Academic Purposes

EOP :

English for Occupational Purposes

Table 6: Students‟ opinion on the objectives of the ESP speaking course ......................... 44
Table 7: Students‟ opinion on the topics to be included in the ESP syllabus ..................... 45
Table 8: Students‟ opinion on the language functions needed for the ESP course ............ 46
Table 9: The proposed speaking syllabus for administrative police students at Intermediate
level of PPC I........................................................................................................ 54

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale for the study
Nowadays, it cannot be denied that English has become one of the most
popular languages all around the world. As an international language, English plays a
crucial role in every aspect of social life from economy, education, culture, health care
to diplomacy, science, technology and security, etc. Thus, there has been an explosion
in the demand for English. That is also the reason why English teaching and learning
is paid special attention by every nation and Vietnam cannot also stand out of the
current trend. There have been an increasing number of people studying English
everyday and longing to master the language for different purposes, but most, if not
all, language learners want to develop proficiency in speaking. As Richards (2008:19)
asserted, of four major language skills, the mastery of speaking skill in English is a
priority for many second language or foreign language learners. Therefore, the
proficiency in English speaking skill should be the learners‟ first and foremost
concern.
To improve learners‟ English speaking ability, a variety of textbooks and materials
have been published. At People‟s Police College I (PPC I), the textbook “Lifelines
Pre-Intermediate” is being used as the core textbook to serve this purpose. However,
most of the students, especially the students at Intermediate level, who account for the
majority at our college, always meet difficulties in English speaking as well as oral

tasks of administrative police officers.



Learning needs: what they need to study during the learning process to make up

for their current deficiency so as to achieve the expected outcomes.
3. Research questions
In order to achieve the above aims, the study sought answers to the following research
questions:
 What are the learning needs and the target needs of the learners in English
speaking to serve their future job as administrative policemen?
 How should an ESP speaking syllabus be designed to cover the types of needs
identified?

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4. Scope of study
This study mainly centralized on designing an ESP syllabus for administrative
police students of People‟s Police College I. In light of the scope of the study, data for
the study were only collected from interviews with the subject teachers, administrative
police officers as well as questionnaires for the teachers of English and the students of
this major, but not any other majors of our college. Additionally, this thesis only paid
attention to studying speaking skill and designing syllabus of speaking skill.
5. Methods of the study
Generally, in order to identify the needs of the target students, survey method
was employed to find out the needs from different relevant participants.
Firstly, in order to identify the target needs, interviews were carried out with subject
teachers and administrative policemen to determine how the target learners are

design, definition of needs, needs analysis as well as role of needs analysis and the
theories of speaking skill.
Chapter 2 - Methodology briefly describes the methodology framework of the study
covering the PPC I context, the participants, the instruments and procedure of data
collection.
Chapter 3 - Data Analysis, Findings and Discussion is a detailed analysis of the
gathered data as well as the major findings and discussion from the data analysis.
Chapter 4 - presents the output of the study - an ESP speaking syllabus for
administrative police students at Intermediate level of PPC I.
Part C - Conclusion gives a summary of the study, limitations of the study and
suggestions for further research.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.

An overview of ESP

1.1.1. Definition of ESP
English for Specific Purposes (ESP), which is in contrast with General English (GE),
has rapidly got to be an extremely efficient approach in the modern educational trend.
To date, there have been a wide variety of definitions and related concepts of ESP
such as those stated by Anthony (1997) or Hutchinson and Waters (1987). Despite
their different words, almost all linguists agree that ESP is based on studying learners‟
needs. According to Anthony (1997), ESP course, which is dependent upon analyzing
learners‟ needs and their professional knowledge, helps learners to fulfill real
communication using English. To a large extent, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) give a

English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economics
(EBE), and English for Social Sciences (ESS). Each type is further divided into two
branches: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational
Purposes (EOP), which cover some majors named as the representatives in the tree,
e.g. English for Medicine, English for Technicians, English for Office Staff or English
for Psychology.

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The Tree of ELT (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987:17)

1.2. Overview of syllabus design
1.2.1. Definition of syllabus and syllabus design
It is greatly important to comprehend the concept of syllabus, which helps the author
design an appropriate and effective output. A large number of educators and
researchers have presented the definitions of syllabus. According to Hutchinson and
Waters (1987:80), syllabus is “a document which says what will (or at least what should) be
learnt”. Breen (1984:47) defines syllabus as a plan of what is to be achieved through our
teaching and our students‟ learning”. In Pienemann‟s (1985:23) words, he refers to syllabus
as “the selection and grading of linguistic teaching objectives” while its function is “to
specify what is to be taught and in what order” (Prabhu, 1984).
Generally, the definitions of syllabus can be agreed and perceived as the specifications
of what to teach and how to order the content of language teaching. Grasping the
concept of syllabus, the researcher comes to the next step to understand the definition
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of syllabus design. According to Munby (1978), syllabus design is comprehensively
and thoroughly seen as “a matter of specifying the content that needs to be taught and

1. Identify target situation
2. Analyze skills/ strategies required to cope in target situation + theoretical reviews of
language + theoretical reviews of learning (if needed)
1. Write syllabus
2. Select texts and write exercises to focus on skills/ strategies in syllabus
3. Establish evaluation procedures which require the use of skills/ strategies in syllabus
This model aims at aiding learners in developing both skills and strategies. It
approaches in the way of not providing learners with a group of specific linguistic
knowledge, but instructing learners to know how to process the knowledge obtained.
Nevertheless, this approach still has some drawbacks that it regards the learner as a user of
language rather than a learner of language and the processes it deals with centre more
on the language use, but not on language learning.
1.2.2.3. Learning-centered approach
From Hutchinson and Waters‟ (1987) viewpoint, learning process is regarded as “a
process of negotiation between individuals and society. Society sets the target (in the
case of ESP, performance in the target situation) and the individuals must do their best
to get as close to the target as possible”. For that reason, it can be inferred that learners
should not only be taken into consideration at the target situation but also at the context
where the learning process takes place. In this learning-centered approach, the learners are
taken into account at every stage of the learning process.
The procedure of the learning-centered approach is presented as follow:
1. Identify learners
2. Analyze learning situation (+ theoretical views of learning) + analyze target situation
(+ theoretical views of language)

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1. Identify attitudes/ wants/ potentials of learners; identify needs/ potential/ constraints of
learning/ teaching situation + identify skills and knowledge needed to function in the target

grammatical regulations while there exists to be other linguistic aspects contributing to
the competence in language use. Second, it is mostly teacher-centred approach, which
leads learners to become more passive in English classes.
1.2.3.2. Functional-notional syllabus
This type of syllabus is, in fact, an integration of the two models: the functional and
the notional one. Functions have a bearing on the communicative purposes in real life
such as: agreeing, thanking, congratulating, etc. Notions, on the other hand, have
concern with the conceptual meanings conveyed by language, for example: size, color,
time, space, and so on. The advantage of the syllabus is that learners will be able to easily
make use of the useful functions and notions for their communicative situations in real life.
In spite of the advantage, learners may meet difficulties in creating and practicing other
communicative functions outside a specific context. Moreover, it is not easy to determine
which functional item (such as requesting) is either simpler or more complicated than
another one (such as complimenting) so that there is obstruction to obeying a logical
progression from the simplicity to the complexity of a syllabus.
1.2.3.3. Situational syllabus
The situational syllabus, on the other hand, mostly gives an emphasis to the
communicative situations which learners may use language to deal with such as:
“Seeing the dentist”, “Asking for the directions”, “Checking in and out the hotel”, etc. The
advantage of this syllabus is that it is nearer to the communicative situations of the learners‟
real life. However, similarly to the functional-notional syllabus, the situational one also gets
a number of drawbacks in terms of the ability of covering various situations outside
classroom and the gradation of difficulties in the syllabus.

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1.2.3.4. Topic-based syllabus
Existing differently from all the three above types of syllabus, topic-based syllabus
views the content, rather than the grammar, function or situation as its starting point.

on separated aspects of performance rather than on an integrated communicative
competence.
To put it briefly, we have just taken into consideration the six types of syllabus, which
are developed based on the three above approaches to syllabus design. For each type
of syllabus, there are both the advantages and the disadvantages. To minimize the
limitations and to maximize its efficiency, the researcher, therefore, intends to adopt a
mix of the two syllabuses: the topic-based and the task-based one in designing a
syllabus for the students at PPC I, which mainly focuses on the language use in
particular tasks that administrative police officers have to fulfill in their day to day
jobs.
1.3. Needs analysis
1.3.1. Definition of needs and needs analysis
Dudley-Evans (1998) refers to learners‟ needs at the simplest level as the “identifiable
elements” of “students‟ target English situation”. On the other hand, Robinson (1991:
7-8) sees needs from both goal-oriented and process-oriented perspective. From the
goal-oriented perspective, he considers needs as “refers to students‟ study or job
requirements, that is, what they have to do at the end of the course.” while his processoriented definition of needs is “what learner needs to do to actually acquire the
language”.
As for needs analysis, in Iwai et al.‟s (1999) opinion, needs analysis refers to the
activities in order to collect information that will serve as the basis for developing a
curriculum. This curriculum will meet the needs of a particular group of students. On
the other hand, Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 54) generally define needs analysis as
what is ultimately meant by the analysis of the target needs and learning needs.

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1.3.2. Types of needs
There are 2 types of needs including target needs and learning needs, as can be
classified by a number of linguists.