PART A : INTRODUCTION
_______________________________________________________________________________
1. Rationale
Foreign languages have been introduced and taught in Vietnam for many years. Especially,
English has become a very popular subject to be taught and paid further surveys and studies
at all levels: from elementary to secondary schools and, furthermore, to tertiary education
across the country.
As the spread of English to almost all corners of the world, nowadays, people are getting
more and more aware of the importance of the language. For many people in Vietnam,
English is seen as a very necessary means to get a good job, especially a well-paid job in
foreign invested companies. Thus, there is a growing demand to learn the language for
business communication. Therefore, the teaching and learning of English have been placed
in an important focus. However, the current situation of English teaching and learning in
Haiphong University has both advantages and disadvantages which should be defined more
clearly so that we can improve the teaching-learning environment and the proficiency of
English competence of the students.
As English teachers of ESP, we may find it hard to determine what points to focus on when
asked to navigate students for their big steps into the real world after they leave university.
We should always bear in mind that some of our students may someday have to work for a
100% foreign invested or International Joint Venture (IJV) firm. This requires not only
instructing our students on how to improve their foreign business language skills, but also
helping them come to terms with cultural differences and business styles which may often be
more of useful resources than impediments.
Feedbacks from many graduates of Haiphong University and now working for foreign firms
show that they really need real-life English when they start their jobs in foreign invested
companies such as how to prepare for a job process, office activities, administration
procedures, etc.
1
Besides, the teaching of business correspondence is one part of the English for Business
Communication. That is why the English majors will really have to face with some
fundamental drawbacks when taking part into this ESP course, namely lack of real-life

Also, the analysis of students’ writing task is done to recognize most common mistakes
made by students when they perform their cover letter writing. This can surely help teachers
anticipate problems in the existing course and seek the possible solutions to fix these
problems. The analysis will assist to distinguish advantages and disadvantages in teaching
techniques for teachers’ part.
5. Organization of the study
The study includes three parts:
PART A: INTRODUCTION presents Rationale, Aims of the study, Scope,
Methodology and Organization of the study
PART B: DEVELOPMENT constitutes the body of the study and consists of three
chapters:
Chapter One: Review of Literature
In this chapter, the trends and approaches applied to teaching English writing
such as Product, Process and Genre are reviewed and then narrowed down to
the approaches for teaching ESP. At the end of this chapter a summary of the
limitations and differences of these approaches is presented.
Chapter Two: Methodology
A brief description of the Business English course currently being taught in
Haiphong University is given and all information related to the research
questions, survey and data collection procedures is also provided with. Also
the analysis of errors made by students is discussed.
3
Chapter Three: Data Analysis and Discussion
In this chapter, survey data collected are analyzed based on the questionnaire
responses in order to find out some major findings about students’ difficulties
in learning Business letter writing. Besides, students’ needs on the course
content, methodologies and their recommendations will be discussed.
Additionally, their weaknesses and strengths are concluded after the error
analysis. Finally, a combined approach to teaching business letter writing is
suggested.

is further divided into sub-divisions according to learners’ needs: for study as English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) and for work as English for Occupational Purposes (EOP).
5
Besides, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) suggested the use of continuum which clarifies
the nature of ESP work. The continuum runs from very General English courses to specific
ESP courses. In this process, the higher the level is, the more specific the ESP course
reaches, ranging from English for beginners to individual needs of professional users.
Today, English is one of the major languages in the world with the number of speakers of over
four hundred millions. Geographically, English is the most widespread language on earth. It is
the language of business, technology, sports and aviation. The world communication is mainly
carried out in English. “Incredibly enough, 75% of the world’s mails and 60% of the world’s
telephone calls are in English.”(John and Liz Soars (1986): 2)
Further more, as Dudley-Evans and St John note that with the increasing numbers of
international students taking Master courses in Business, Finance, Accounting and Banking,
the area of Academic Business English is beginning to assume much greater importance in
EPA. (Dudley-Evans and St. John 1997: 31) and ESP courses are designed by mixing up
different elements to fit the learners’ particular situation.
1.2. Teaching English writing
1.2.1. Definition of writing
Writing is one of communicative approaches. Through the mastery of writing, people come
to be fully effective in intellectual organization, in the management of everyday affairs, in
the expression of ideas and arguments. By writing people can have control of both
information and of people as well.
As mentioned by Byrne (1988) we can understand that “writing is an act of forming graphic
symbols”. However, of all language learning skills, writing is valued as “a language skill
which is difficult to acquire” (Tribble, 1996:3).
In The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels defines writing as: “a system of more or
less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can be recovered
more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer”.
1.2.2. Writing tasks and activities

7
the target skill areas and means of implementation are defined, the teacher can then proceed
to focus on what topic can be employed to ensure student participation. By pragmatically
combing these objectives, the teacher can expect both enthusiasm and effective learning.
As Ann Raimes (1983) mentions that “When we learn a second language, we learn to
communicate with other people: to understand them, to talk to them, read what they have
written and write to them. Visitors to another country will often have to leave a note for the
mailman, fill out a customs declaration form, give written instructions, or write a thank you
letter.”
There is no better way for students to grasp the essential value of writing as a form of
communication than for them to produce the kind of practical writing that many people do in
their everyday life. Each piece of practical writing has both clear purpose and specific
audience: Messages, application forms, invitations, letters and instructions and the like.
1.2.4. Approaches to teaching English writing
There are several ways to approach writing in the classroom. It should be said at the
beginning that there is not necessarily any 'right' or 'best' way to teach writing skills. The
best practice in any situation will depend on the type of students, the text type being studied,
the school system and many other factors as Raimes (1983) points out “There is no correct
answer to question of how to teach writing in ESL classes. There are as many answers as
there are teachers and teaching styles, or learners and learning styles.”
Hereafter, several approaches are reviewed with a view to understanding the background
theory of current writing approaches to teaching writing in ESL classes.
1.2.4.1. The Product Approach
For a long time, Product Approach has dominated much of the teaching that happens in the
English classrooms. In this approach, focus is greatly placed on the linguistic knowledge,
with attention on the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax, and cohesive devices.
As far as the Product Approach is concerned, learning to write has four stages:
familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing. The aim of this approach
is to enable students to produce similar texts. Brown (1994:320) states that learning is
8

experience and question, prewriting preparation, draft writing, editing and rewriting,
publication or sharing, and response and feedback from the readers. The very typical four
stages go as following: prewriting; composing/drafting; revising and editing.
In Process Approach, the teacher primarily facilitates the students’ writing, and providing
input or stimulus is considered to be less important. Writing development is seen as an
unconscious process which happens when teachers facilitate the exercise of writing skills.
The role of a teacher is as an education facilitator. The shift of focus and the change in the
teacher’s role necessitate greater emphasis on activities such as collaborative group work and
peer evaluation.
Since its foundation, the Process Approach has been widely accepted because it lays
emphasis on the writing process of writers. Compared to the Product Approach, the Process
Approach has undoubtedly made great improvements on practical teaching and provided
much thought for English teachers. However, the disadvantage of the Process Approach is
that it often regards all writing as being produced by the same set of processes; that it gives
insufficient importance to the kind of texts writers produce and why such texts are produced;
and that it offers learners insufficient input, particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge.
Ron White and Valerie Arndt are keen to stress that 'writing is re-writing; that revision
seeing with new eyes - has a central role to play in the act of creating text' (White and Arndt
1991: 5). In their model, process writing is an interrelated set of recursive stages which
include:
- Drafting
- Structuring (ordering information, experimenting with arrangements, etc.)
- Reviewing (checking context, connections, assessing impact, editing)
- Focusing (making sure you are getting the message across you want to get across)
- Generating ideas and evaluation (assessing the draft and/or subsequent drafts)
White and Arndt's model can be represented diagrammatically, as in Figure 1:
10
Figure 1: Model of Process Approach
The teacher plays a greater role in this approach in providing input and consequently,
feedback during the revision and evaluation stages. The number of times this is done is not

patterns that shape a text must be aware of. Students need to be familiarized with the
schemata associated with the particular genres they will require. Genre analysis can therefore
provide the vocabulary and concepts to explicitly teach the text structures we would like our
students to produce. It places language at the center of writing development by allowing
shared understanding and explicit guidance. The Genre Approach offers students a relatively
fixed discourse model that they can use for reference, thus students will gain confidence in
producing a text that serves its intended purpose. On the other hand, as to the negative side,
the Genre Approach is prescriptive rather than descriptive, which is likely to lead to lack of
creativity and de-motivation in the learners. Students will feel this teaching approach boring
and in their practical writing, their products will be found stereotyped. Sometimes, the Genre
Approach may prove to be a text-centered approach, focused on the reproduction of the
product, rather than a student-centered one. What is more, in practical teaching, teachers can
not provide students with all sorts of genres in the classroom. Therefore, the Genre Approach
also has its limitations in the teaching of writing.
To sum up, with brief review of the thee approaches commonly applied in teaching writing
as Product, Process and Genre approaches, both advantages and drawbacks are defined and
looked into. Of course, there cannot be a single perfect approach to teaching students writing
especially writing their business writing. The question here is laid down to ESP teachers is
12
that he should pick up the most advantageous strengths of each approach and appropriately
combine them into a synthetic approach so that the teaching and learning will be of
maximum effect. A synthesis of approaches will be suggested in Part C of this study.
1.3. Error classification
In order to give suggestion for an appropriate approach to teaching business correspondence
writing for English majors in Haiphong University, error identification is made because it is
one of the useful techniques in teaching-learning process.
Correction and Assessment are really in-separate because they both help the learners to
assess their learning and self-value their products. Error correction in writing is often made
on students’ written work such as homework, exercises, assignment.
In writing classes, students’ errors are often pointed out by teachers on different performance

2.1. A description of the current business course to be taught for English
majors in Haiphong University
2.1.1. The course syllabus
The Foreign Language Department of Haiphong University consists of 3 major sub-
divisions: The English, Russian and Chinese departments. Students who have passed the
national entrance exams will be sorted into two types of groups: The teacher training groups
and the remaining students will be in non-teaching groups. The ESP course is allocated for
the non-teaching groups only. After graduation, students of these groups will look for a job
in business or manufacturing enterprises and use their English for office work. That is why
they are supposed to learn a variety of ESP subjects such as: English for Education, English
for Finance and Banking, English for Economics, Business English, and so on, so that they
can obtain technical terms and specialized knowledge for their targeted subjects.
The time allocation for Business English course is as of the following:
Semester Credits Periods Requirements
IV
(Business I)
3 3x15
Introduce and practice basic skills and techniques for
business communications.
V
(Business II)
3 3x15
Develop and further practice the skills used in business
situations and greatly focus on business language
functions.
VI
(Business III)
2 2x15
Business correspondence writing
Business English is taught when students have obtained basic language skills in General