Đề tài English for business purposes (ebp) in an english for specific purposes (esp) context

part one Introduction Rationale Writing business reports is one of the fundamental business writing skills. Business reports here are understood as "documents that present information on a specific topic for a specific business purpose" (Boone, 1996: 308). Nearly all business activities involve writing business reports, from analyzing the status of projects, summarizing business trips, to investigating an arising problem or suggesting a change in an organization. Writing reports sometimes becomes professional services which are provided for a fee. The job of market research companies, for example, is to write reports on the results from their researches on consumers' demands for a particular product or service. Writing effective reports is an essential skill for office workers and should be taken into consideration in language education in colleges, especially for language students who are likely to be office staff after graduation. The teaching of business reports in English is a part of courses of English for business communication, a branch of English for Specific Purposes. English-major students, however, have to face a number of problems when studying English as a means of business communication. First, most of the students are not familiar with business knowledge. Most of them have never taken part in any business activities so far. Business courses, if any, provide just general theories of economics. Second, the materials used for the courses are not usually tailored for language students to learn to write business reports in English intensively. In Vietnam, some intensive courses of English for Business Communication have to use materials for low-intensive courses and/or those written for English native speakers to study business communication with English as the first language. Those materials can neither provide a thorough understanding of the subject nor anticipate the lack of language competence of foreign language learners. The knowledge of writing business reports in English is considered a need for English-major students who will soon graduate and might have to use the knowledge in working life. However, as a newly established non-state university, Thang Long has a remarkable number of problems in dealing with the matter. Firstly, the university staff, most of which are little informed teachers of English, has to begin designing the syllabus from nothing but references from several similar available ones. As for the courses of English for Business Communication, it is hard to find a relevant syllabus so the staff has chosen to rely on a textbook written for improving business communication skill for native speakers. Besides, as language-major students, students with English major find it really difficult to deal with business issues, let alone writing reports on the subject. With those difficulties, the teaching of English for business communication in general and writing business reports in English in particular is really a challenge. What the teacher can do now is to develop effective teaching strategies that help students understand the subject knowledge presented in the textbook, design useful exercises for practicing both language aspects and writing skills and avoid making errors in writing business reports. The study, therefore, is proposed to find out those necessary teaching strategies for the section of teaching how to write business reports in the course of English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long University. Purposes of the study The research questions are: What do language students need in learning to write business reports in English? What are the difficulties for language students in learning to write business reports in English? What are common errors made by students in writing business reports in English? What are effective strategies for teaching writing business reports in English? From all of these, it is understood that the study aims at finding out effective and appropriate teaching strategies to achieve more satisfying results for the course. The satisfying results can be understood as students' ability to convey factual information efficiently and cohesively. Written texts must also lead to insightful and frequently profitable solutions. It is required that business report writers address specific audience and pay attention to appropriate format and design issues so that a finished document can be closely read or efficiently skimmed. Evaluation criteria should include attention to students' address of assignment, use of persuasive insights, consistent address of target audience, and ability to create effective summaries, headings, subheadings, lists and short paragraphs. Lastly, reports must be expressed in accurate, appropriate and effective sentence structures, lexical items, orthography and styles. It is surprising that although business reports in English are used frequently in most foreign offices in Vietnam, there have not been many studies on this aspect of business writing or business communication. This study attempts not only to look into the existing methodologies but also to find out distinctive features of the teaching context at Thang Long University and language students to apply these methodologies appropriately. Scope of the study The study focuses on the teaching process of the section of writing business reports in the course English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long University. It tries to suggest effective teaching strategies that can be used in the course. A strategy can be understood as "a carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal, or the art of developing or carrying out such a plan" (Encarta Reference Library 2004). Teaching strategies, therefore, can be understood as plans of action in order to achieve a goal in teaching. In this language content-based course, the language teacher also plays the role of an instructor who teaches skills. The strategies, therefore, are for teaching both language and skills. The subjects of the study are language students who major in English, not students with business major. The study does not deal with other kinds of reports apart from business reports used in business activities, i.e. activities performed in organizations operating in order to provide goods or services. English is used in these activities to facilitate communication involving people speaking English as the first, second or foreign language. The study only tries to find out teaching strategies to help students learn how to write business reports with the aspects including language, research methods, visual aid design, writing process and organizational structure. It does not try to suggest the needed changes of other aspects of the course and curriculum designs, such as time allotted for the course, facility settings, class size, and student assessment. Methodology The paper will present a review from published materials in the related fields. Also, a needs analysis will be conducted among the existing students of English major in order to find out whether language students at Thang Long University consider teaching report writing useful and find out the prepared teaching methods, their expectations from, their difficulties in and their recommendations for the course. Lastly, an error analysis of students' writing samples is used to identify the common errors made by the students in writing business reports in English. Books, articles and Internet resources on English for Business Purposes, teaching English writing and business reports are collected to examine the history of the fields and to provide available suggestions in the practice of teaching business report writing. Next, the needs analysis is conducted through a questionnaire survey of students who are taking the course of English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long University. The analysis of errors in writing samples is used in order to find out common errors students often make when writing business reports in English. This can help the teacher anticipate problems in the existing course and look for proper ways to deal with these common errors and solve those problems. The analysis also helps find out the strengths and drawbacks of the course, which may result in appropriate adjustments in the course contents as well as the teaching techniques of the teacher. The primary data combine both qualitative and quantitative methods with both open and closed questions in the questionnaire designed for the needs analysis, and the error analysis in texts written by students. Contents of the study The study includes four chapters, Chapter 1 presents a review on literature, Chapter 2 deals with the research description, Chapter 3 shows the interpretation of data analyses, and implications for teaching how to write business reports in English for English-major students are recommended in Chapter 4. In Chapter 1, the trends and approaches of English for Specific Purposes are examined and later narrowed down to English for Business Purposes. Also, the chapter will trace down the approaches of teaching writing as well as analyze writing tasks and activities in a classroom. Lastly, the chapter presents features of business reports as a genre with analysis on its classification, rhetorical patterns, linguistic features and the writing process. Chapter 2 describes the study of needs analysis and the error analysis of the students' writing samples. In Chapter 3, the data of the two researches are analyzed to draw useful conclusions and implications. Firstly, the needs analysis questionnaire responses are put together and evaluated. The results will review the students' needs on the course content, methodologies, and their recommendations. Secondly, the results of the error analysis are presented to see the weakness of students' writing skills. Based on the review of literature and the data analysis in the Chapter 1 and 3, Chapter 4 will present key points of the studies: implications for teaching to write business reports. The chapter will follow the teaching process from presenting the knowledge in the content-based course including analyzing sample reports, giving practice exercises, and managing errors in these writing exercises. Part two The Study CHAPTER I Literature Review I.1. ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES (EBP) IN AN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES (ESP) CONTEXT I.1.1. DEFINITIONS OF ESP Despite appearing first in as far as the 1960s, ESP has not had an agreed-upon definition so far. Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 19) emphasized, "ESP should probably be seen not as any particular language product but as an approach to language teaching which is directed by specific and apparent reasons for learning." English language teaching with ESP approach, therefore, becomes more targeted to the learner's needs and creates more motivation to the learner. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 4-5) have modified a definition of ESP by Strevens' into one including absolute and variable characteristics as follows: Absolute characteristics: ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learner; ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves; ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities. Variable Characteristics ESP may be related to or designed for specific discipline; ESP may use, in specific teaching situation, a different methodology from that of General English; ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation. It could, however, be for learners at secondary school level; ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students; Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners. (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 4-5) With these two views, it can be concluded that ESP is closely related with the needs of language learners in their use of English in their fields of professions or studies. Also, ESP includes a number of variations that can be flexibly adjusted to fit the various needs of learners. I.1.2. CLASSIFICATIONS OF ESP Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 17) and Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 6) build similar trees for different divisions of ESP in which ESP is divided into such branches as English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economics (EBE), and English for Social Sciences (ESS), and further to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) or Business Purposes (EBP) from English for Management, Finance and Economics, and English for Business and Economics (EBE). Dudley-Evans and St John, on the other hand, suggested the use of a continuum with degrees of specificity, in which the higher the level is, the more specific the course becomes, accompanying with the levels of English. Martin (1992: 40) also gave a thorough description of several degrees of specificity, from more specific courses to more general courses, and no restrictions on the language levels, as presented in Figure I-1. The use of degrees of speficity of ESP course helps clarify English courses. Courses in type V will not be considered ESP courses due to the far too indirect link to the professional areas. On the other hand, type I courses are the most specific courses and can be applied to learners with clear professional target. Degrees of specificity Targets Objectives Text-types Type I very specifiable / predictable / routine narrow skills (content secondary) specific, routine Type II specifiable / predictable in term of types skill and some content can be identified as genres, routine and non-routine Type III half specifiable, half unpredictable content and skill balanced a wide range of definable types Type IV primarily not predictable, but with some important specifiable elements content-focused skill-subordinate wide range of variable, unpredictable Type V very few specifiable or predictable both skills and content wide range, unpredictable Source: Adapted from Martin, 1992: 40. Figure I-1: The Five Degrees of Specificity of ESP courses In conclusion, the use the tree systems can be used in defining the branches of ESP and different disciplines that English can be used in, while the continuum can be seen as an effective tool in defining the courses of ESP in practice and in deciding the elements of those courses. Both the tree system and the continuum are relevant in classifying EBP courses in the teaching context of the study. I.1.3. TRENDS AND APPROACHES IN ESP Nelson (2000) worked out an overview of the different ideas on the different trends or approaches of ESP. ESP has experienced a number of phases: register analysis, rhetorical and discourse analysis, needs analysis, skills and strategies, and learning-centered approach. These phases will be presented in the chronological order. However, because ESP develops at different paces in different countries in the world and what is old in one situation may still be appropriate and useful in another context, all the above trends can be seen in practice (Hutchinson, 1987: 9). I.1.3.1. Register Analysis Register analysis is the special language that is considered suitable for a specific situation. For example, the English used in computer science must be different from that in psychology. Swales (1988, as cited by Dudley-Evans and St John 1988:21) assumes that while the basic grammar is not different in different circumstances, certain forms of grammatical and lexical forms occur more frequently than other forms in one circumstance and than the same forms in other circumstances. The concept of register or a special language has been applied in language teaching in that some registers are emphasized in the materials and syllabuses of language courses. The analysis of those registers has been considered to be of little value as it is not a reliable basis for ESP courses to just focus on simply teaching the linguistic elements that are special in the context. However, with new computerized methods, for example, the development corpus analysis, register analysis is now coming back. I.1.3.2. Rhetorical or Discourse Analysis The next stage of development in ESP accompanies the development of field discourse analysis. Discourse analysis examines language in a higher level than the sentential level in register analysis, the text. The key factor of discourse analysis is the rhetorical patterns and the linking devices in a text. The ESP textbooks written based on discourse analysis concentrate on the rhetorical functions of different forms of language and the coherence and cohesion of the text. The later phase of discourse analysis is genre analysis. According to Swales (1990: 58) as cited by Nelson (2000), "genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes." In fact, genre analysis adds cultural and social settings into discourse analysis. I.1.3.3. Needs Analysis Needs analysis is neither special to language teaching nor, within language teaching, to LSP. Needs analysis include analyses of the target situation - the situation in which learners will use the language they are learning, the language/genre/discourse, the subjective needs, the learning needs, and the present situation of the learner's current skill and language use (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998). The needs analysis will provide useful and thorough information so that the teaching implemented can meet these needs. I.1.3.4. Analysis of Study Skills and Strategies In the linguistic field, of discourse analysis, no special attention was given to the necessary language skills. Then came the communicative language teaching movement which puts a priority on the four skills, beginning with reading and writing, and then listening and speaking. In English courses during that time, the language knowledge was developed together with the ability to communicate using the knowledge. However, not only individual skills are mentioned, the underlying competence is also an important factor. This refers to the ability to reason and interpret the meaning. The focus of reading skill, for example, is not only on the comprehension of the text but also on the ability to guess the meaning regardless of unknown language items. Learners are required to learn the strategies as well as the skills. I.1.3.5. A Learning-Centered Approach Hutchinson and Waters (1987) successfully moved from the above language-centered approaches to a learning-centered approach. Hutchinson and Waters considered other approaches to have "flaw" on focusing on language, not on learning, and the learning-centered approach is underlied by the theory related to the language learning process. I.1.3.6. Content-Based Language Instruction Content-based instruction is considered as the new paradigm in language education, which helps improving learners' language while studying a subject matter (Dueủas, 2003). According to Brinton, Snow and Wesche (1989, p. 2) as cited by Halvorsen (1995) content-based teaching is "the concurrent teaching of academic subject matter and second language skills." The two purposes are inter-woven; the target language is the medium for communicating information about the content subject while the content offers the context for learning language skills. According to Dueủas (2003), content-based language instruction has a number of advantages. Firstly, content-based language courses provide a considerable amount of language input. Secondly, the content-based instruction “support contextualized learning”; the context is the subject matter presented in the target language, resulting in meaningful communication, “rather than isolated language fragment.” Another benefit is the coherent and systematic content of the subject matter allows students to refer to their prior language. Moreover, in content-based learning, learners learn the language to express the unknown and challenging content, which creates “intrinsic motivation.” Besides, content-based instruction develops students’ learning strategies because the dual purposes require students to have suitable strategies in various learning tasks. Also, the activities and curriculum in these courses can be flexible and adaptable. Lastly, content-based allows student-centered activities. I.1.3.7. ESP Today Few changes have been recorded since the work of Hutchinson and Waters (1987). However, there can be two factors that make the character of ESP today. One is the rise of English for Business Purposes (EBP), which is seen as "currently the area of greatest activity and growth in ESP" (Dudley-Evans and St John 1998:53). The other is that ESP is now experiencing an "eclectic period" (Nelson, 2000) in which the courses are designed by mixing up different elements to fit the learners' particular situation. I.1.4. ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES (EBP): A DEVELOPING BRANCH OF ESP With the globalization of trade, Business English or English for Business Purposes (EBP) has become the fastest growing field in ESP. EBP has been researched thoroughly by a number of authors. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:53) summarized Pickett's argument that EBP has a lot in common with everyday language of the general public. He also suggests two aspects of business communication: communication with the public and communication within a company and between companies (Pickett, 1986: 16). Brieger (as cited in Nelson 2000) defines that Business English consists of language knowledge (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.) and communication skills (giving presentations, meeting, telephoning, report writing, etc.) This definition puts an emphasis on the language and skills in a business context not business knowledge. Nelson (2000) argues that all the descriptions of EBP are much to simplistic of the broad scope of Business English today. According to Dudley-Evans (1998:53-54), because of its popularity, English is a key to international business communications. It is spoken not only among people from English-speaking countries, or between native speakers and non-native speakers, but more commonly, among non-native speakers who do not share the first language. One consequence of this is that non-native speakers can understand each other more easily when communicating in English than they can understand native-speakers and than native speakers can understand them. Another consequence is that the English spoken among non-native speakers is different from that spoken among native speakers. I.2. TEACHING ENGLISH WRITING In this part of the study, what has been previously published about the teaching methodology of English writing will be examined. The focus of the part is on the teaching of business writing in the context of teaching general writing. First, a distinction between the characteristics of written and spoken texts will be presented. Secondly, traditional and modern approaches in teaching writing will be discussed. Then, the study provides microskills in writing and tasks and activities in a writing class. Lastly, there will be a discussion on feedback, an important job of teachers of writing in a second or foreign language. I.2.1. Written versus spoken texts Ur (1996: 159-161) suggests characteristics that distinguish written from spoken language. His analysis is summarized in Figure I-2. Written language Spoken language Permanence permanent fleeting and movable Explicitness explicit assumed, implicit Density dense include repetitions, glosses, fillers Detachment detached in time and place from readership takes place with intermediate interaction and feedback Organization well organized, edited improvising Slowness of production speed of reception slower to produce, but quicker to read quicker to produce but listening speed is decided by the speed of speaker Standard language standard may be in regional, or limited-context dialect. A learnt skill must be taught and learnt mother tongue is acquired Sheer amount and importance used less used more in life Source: Adapted from Ur, 1996: 159-160. Figure I-2: Comparing Spoken Language and Written Language The summary gives several suggestions for the study. Firstly, the teaching of English writing should make students aware of the discourse, grammatical and lexical features (appearing in the table under the categories Organization, Standard language and Dense) of written texts. Secondly, besides linguistic features, the teaching of writing should also focus on developing the writing skills (under A learnt skill). Thirdly, in order to teach writing effectively, the teacher must understand the difference between students’ knowledge and the Standard language, and their difficulties in learning to write in English. I.2.2. Approaches IN teaching ENGLISH writing I.2.2.1. The Product Approach The product approach concentrates on the final product that writer has to produce. Teachers following the product approach often begin the lessons with a presentation of a model text, which is then analyzed on the purpose, language, the organization, and the style. The aim is to enable learners to produce similar texts. Learning is evaluated through the text analysis of learners' work according to some criteria such as the standard of rhetorical style, accurate grammar, and conventional organization (Brown 1994: 320). The value of this approach is the use of models for text analysis and as a basis for thinking about the purposes and readership of a text (Dudley-Evans and St John 1998: 117). I.2.2.2. The Process Approach Unlike the product approach, the process approach focuses on thinking and writing processes. The product approach sees language learners as creators of language, decision makers of the message and content (Brown 1994: 320). It is argued by Nunan (1991: 87) that while the product-oriented approach aims at developing the learner's writing skill mainly at the sentence-level, the process-oriented approach aims at language at the discourse-level. In addition, the approach builds effective processes including a number of steps that writers follow, in which writing includes the processes of planning, writing, revising and rewriting. I.2.2.3. The Genre Approach Since texts are considered under genre perspective, EFL writing must take into account studies on genre. According to Harwood, 2002, there have recently been several corpus-based studies which show that considerable differences exist from genre to genre. Some examples of these include Hyland, 2000, 2001; Salager-Meyer, 1994; Swales et al, 1998; Tang & John, 1999. These corpus data, which reveal the diversity of linguistic features and rhetorical structures among genre, have strengthened the introduction of the genre approach in writing. The genre approach infers that readers have certain expectations about what a text that belongs to a genre is like and writer should try to follow these conventions to help readers. I.2.2.4. The Sample Approach The product, process, and genre approaches, as concluded by Harwood, 2002, are not mutually exclusive. Harwood agues that the genre approach, which derives from the using of samples for learners to imitate in the product approach, can combine different approaches. It provides the textual input as in the product approach, emphasizes the importance of building reader-friendly texts as in the process approach, and acknowledges the reader's expectations on what the text will look like as in the genre approach. Harwood, 2002 also distinguishes between models and samples to argue against the criticism to the use of models in writing classroom. Firstly, models have the potential to intimidate students because they are of certainly high quality. According to Harwood (2002), models are ideal compositions for students to look at to know what should be done in writing the required texts of the genre. Models are considered to contain no errors on genre and structure. On the other hand, samples are texts specially prepared for the writing class to analyze both what should be done and what should be avoided. Hence, samples are not perfect and contain both strong points and weak points. In prepared samples, there could be some “traps” of common mistakes that should be discovered when students discuss the samples. Secondly, there are arguments that models are often inappropriate with the learners' needs of length and types. However, samples can be specially prepared for each type of required text genre. Thirdly, some believe that imitating models limit learner's work in a process. However, as samples are not perfect and need to be analyzed, they will promote interaction and criticism. Lastly, one concern is that the use of models leads to students copying; however, the examining of samples requires more skills than copying and the task is far from being boring. I.2.3. Microskills of Writing According to Brown (1994: 327), writing involves the microskills as presented in Figure I-3. Brown's list of microskills of writing includes sufficient aspects required by a writer, yet, it does not have a clear balance for application. Ur (1996: 163) emphasizes the balance between the importance of expressing the ideas and that of formal aspects. Accordingly, the content or the message should be of fair balance with the form, i.e. the correct spelling and punctuation, acceptable grammar and careful selection of vocabulary. Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English. Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose. Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order patterns. Use acceptable grammatical systems (e.g. tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns and rules. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. Use cohesive devices in written discourse. Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse. Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose. Convey links and connections between events and communicate such regulations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing. Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the written text. Develop and use a battery of writing strategies such as accurately assessing the audience's interpretation, using pre-writing devices, writing with fluency in the first draft, using paraphrases and synonym, soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising and editing. Source: Brown, Douglas, 1994, p. 327. Figure I-3: Microskills of Writing From this list of microskills of writing, teachers of English writing can find useful information for their career. First, they have a list of specific microskills which can be considered as components of writing skills. By developing these microskills, students’ writing can be built up gradually. Next, learning the microskills will help both teachers and students understand the all requirements of a writing text as a whole. I.2.4. Writing tasks and activities Doff (1988: 148-153) and Brown (1994: 327-330) divided writing activities according to the levels of the teacher's control, which include: (1) imitative or writing down, (2) controlled or guided writing, and (3) free-writing or self-writing. Imitative writing involves activities like copying, which are somewhat mechanical and do not require learners to understand the meaning. That is why these activities are uninteresting for learners and should only be used for beginners. Another form is dictation, which is more challenging to learners. This incentive activity helps develop both listening and spelling. However, it does not really develop the writing skill in that learners do not have to express ideas or find ways to construct sentences. Also, this is not an authentic activity. Controlled writing activities provide more challenges for learners but still limit their creativity. Examples of controlled writing are changing a text from the present tense to the past tense, completing a sentence by filling the blanks, writing sentences from clues, and writing from pictures. Another form is dicto-comp, in which the teacher read the whole paragraph at a normal speed, then puts key words from the paragraph on the board, and learners are required to rewrite the paragraph from their recollection and the key words. Freer activities include writing based on a text or on oral presentation. In the former, learners are provided with a paragraph as a model, then are required to based on the paragraph and write a similar paragraph giving their own information or information provided by the teacher. Oral presentation begins with class activities when learners make suggestions and the teacher builds up an outline, or a list of key expressions, on the board. In free writing, or self-writing, learners have a certain amount of choice of ideas, there may be some few limitations like the length or the composition, or the topic. This part is for suggesting the tasks and activities of a writing class. Writing teacher must know when and how to conduct each activity or to give each task. I.2.5. Feedback According to Ur (1996: 242), "feedback is information that is given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance." He also notes that feedback includes both assessment and correction. Assessment is when the teacher gives a learner's performance the comment or grade so that the learner knows how well or badly is his/her performance. This will direct the learner how to improve the performance to meet certain demands. In correction, the teacher tries to make some aspects of the learner's performance right and appropriate to certain criteria. Those aspects can be of grammatical, semantic, social characteristics. Assessment can be of various forms from a word or a short sentence said to a learner who has answered a question, to a comment on an essay, or a grade on an exam. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 210) distinguish two forms of assessment, continuous assessment and formal testing. Formal tests have been discussed in the previous part of evaluation on the course so this part is devoted to classroom assessment only. Correction and assessment, in fact, are not completely separate because correction often follows assessment and both of them help the learner not only with how right or wrong the learner is but also what should be improved and how. Error correction in writing often involves writing on students' written works; that is why it can be referred to in the future. There is sometimes a distinction between mistakes where students know the rules but fail to follow them when producing a piece of language and errors where students produce unstandardized language systematically (Ur, 1996 and Edge, 1989.) However, it is difficult to identify whether a specific wrong item is a slip (mistake) or a systematic error. It is said that the teacher can do that by letting students check their own or their peers' writing texts so that the errors remain while mistakes are found and corrected. Nevertheless, there is not a clear cut among them because it is unsure whether the students have found all the mistakes and whether finding and correcting result from a thorough understanding of the language knowledge. Therefore, the word error(s) used in this document has both meanings, i.e., includes mistake(s). In writing classes, many teachers correct students' errors by pointing out the mistakes and/or errors on different performance aspects of a written task, then either suggesting or showing learners the way to improve the inappropriate aspects. We will look at different types of errors, including mistakes, (Edge, 1989) as follows. Errors of meaning are language products that are correct in linguistic form but fail to mean what the producer means to say. In comparison with errors of form, errors of meaning are more difficult to be discovered and understood. Errors of meaning can also be pieces of language with correct linguistic form but are socially unacceptable. Because they affect understanding, they are more important than errors of forms. Errors of organization are involved in texts that fail to follow the conventional organization which makes it easy to follow and pleasing to read. Errors of language forms, according to Ur (1996), are mainly referred to when teachers give their feedback, which make their students believe that these are what matters. The first reason is that “errors in spelling or grammar catch the eye and seem to demand to be corrected”. Secondly, students themselves also want their language errors to be corrected, as can be seen from this study. And one more possible reason is that language errors are much easier to be found out and corrected than errors of content and organization. All the three above-mentioned errors should be paid attention to because writing skills require a combination of elements. For the wrong pieces that can be identified as mistakes, not errors, students should be encouraged to correct by themselves and hopefully, the repetition of these mistakes may be avoided. As for fossilized mistakes, there should be specially designed exercises to raise students' awareness of the knowledge. For errors caused by the lack of necessary knowledge, the teacher needs to provide students with the knowledge of right, expected items. I.3. AN ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS REPORTS IN ENGLISH Although business reports are commonly used and business report writing is one popular subject in Business English courses, few theoretical documents analyzing business reports have been found. This study, therefore, will look into the teaching materials and conduct a simple primary research on the genre. This is an attempt to describe features of the business reports so that the study can suggest for the teaching of writing the document. I.3.1. BUSINESS REPORTS AS A GENRE In linguistics the term genre refers to different types of communicative events (Martin, 1984; Swales, 1990). Genres can be identified by their overall shape or generic structure decided by the genre linguistic functions. That is why the generic structure can be predicted. Also, the communicative purpose can decide some of the grammatical and lexical structures and other characteristics that make the discourse type distinctive. A genre can be a general or large genre, that is when a genre consists of several different genres. For example, journals include reportages, editorials which share some common distinctive features from other genres, but each of the discourses has its own function and involves different linguistic features. The genre business report is part of the genre business writing which includes business letters, business internal memos, business proposals, etc. as well. The purpose of all these small genres is doing business. Business reports are also part of the general genre reports which also include academic reports. Brown, 1994 (286-287) lists different types of authentic writing in which reports are mentioned as a non-fiction type. Reports, in general, are documents that present and organize ideas on a specific topic. The ideas in reports are gathered from reading or conducting primary research. Business reports are widely used for various purposes because they provide a useful service to people. Reports interpersonally transfer objective knowledge and information on research so that referencing can be open to an unlimited number of responsible people at any times. Business reports, therefore, assist in making decisions and solving problems. I.3.2. CLASSIFICATIONS OF BUSINESS REPORTS Reports are often divided according to purposes. Bovee, Thill, and Schatzman (1997: 377) give an example of two main kinds of reports Informational reports and analytical reports. Locker (1997: 358) has recommendation reports apart from those two. She also names some of the most commonly used business reports in everyday use such as sales reports, quarterly reports as examples of information reports, annual reports, audit reports as examples of analytical reports, and feasibility reports, problem-solving reports as examples of recommendation reports. She adds some more reports that combines several purposes into one like accident report both analyzing causes and recommending changes, trip reports both describing the trip and recommending actions. For training purposes, business communication books often deal with short and long reports separately. These books focus on training the skills to write some typical short reports and guide the writing process in writing long reports. Boone, Kurtz and Block (1996: 370-376), for example, choose to teach four types of short reports, progress reports, trip reports, investigative reports and trouble reports. I.3.3. RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS REPORTS In her course book to business communication, Northey (1998: 144) suggests the key elements of business reports including a statement of purpose, key points, a discussion of findings. The statement of purpose clearly reveals the aim of the report and can be considered the introduction of the report. The key points including conclusions and recommendations are the most important information provided by a report. Some busy readers only read this part instead of reading the whole report. The discussion of findings is the most extensive part of the report. It can include several headings and can be organized in various ways. Northey also discusses the order of these elements. A direct organization is used when the reader is pleased or interested because the report begins with a statement of purpose, followed by the key points and the discussion of findings will end the report with the explanations for the conclusions and recommendations in the key points. On the other hand, an indirect organization is suitable for displeased or skeptical readers, building gradually towards the conclusions and recommendations by providing the discussion of findings before the key points. Locker (1997: 403) suggests seven basic patterns for organizing information in the discussion of findings in a report: Comparison and contrast: many reports are involved in making decision among several alternatives and there will be criteria to be based on. The author can organize the discussion of findings according to either each alternative or each criterion. Problem-solution: In problem-solution, the report writer identifies the problem, explains its background or history; discusses its extent and seriousness, and identifies its causes. Then the author discusses the factors that affect the decision, analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of possible solutions. The author must also give conclusions and recommendations Elimination of alternatives: After discussing the problems and their causes, the author discusses the impractical solutions first, showing why they will not be effective. The report ends with the most practical solution. General to particular or particular to general: Both ways are good when the author needs to redefine the reader’s perception of the problem in order to solve it effectively. In the former, the author starts with the problem as it affects the organization or as it manifests itself in general then moves to a discussion of the parts of the problem and solutions to each of these parts. In the latter, the author starts with the problem as the audience defines it and moves to larger issues of which the problem is a part. Geographic or spatial: the author discuses problems and solutions by units by their physical arrangement. Functional: the author discusses the problems and solutions of each functional unit. Chronological: the author records events in the order in which they happened or are planned to happen. In general, a business report should be structured in a logical way of thinking no matter what pattern it follows. The division of ideas into main points (parts) is necessary to help readers to follow the report. Also, as other written texts, a report needs to have coherence and unity. Carol (1997: 302) gives a view on coherence which means "well organized and tightly knit.” Coherence here is understood in a broader meaning, that is it includes both grammatical, lexical devices and semantic relationship. This belongs to a broader meaning and includes both ideas on cohesion and coherence. Thus, for a report to be coherent, repetition, synonyms, pronouns, transitions and parallel sentence patterns must be used effectively. Also, Carol suggested unity means all the sentences support the topic; a report is unified when all of the sentences and paragraphs illustrate, clarify, explain, support and/or address the ideas expressed in the statement of purpose of the report. I.3.4. LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF BUSINESS REPORTS Business reports belong to written business documents and must conform to a number of linguistic features of the genre. Firstly, reports must be of standard written language, which means correct use of grammar, spelling, vocabulary usage, and conventions of capitalization and punctuation. A report to be sent to a boss in the organization or to a partner in another firm must be free of grammar and spelling errors Secondly, report language must be appropriate; in this case, it must have the appropriate style. A business report should be factual, formal, objective, and impersonal. It must not use slang. In the book Business Reports in English, Comfort, Revell, and Stott chose a number of typical language structures in order to express the following business report functions: Comparing Reason and purpose Cause and effect Amount and different Quantity Graph description Classification Active and passive Noun phrases Impersonal reporting Personal reporting Past perfect tense Degree Probability Recommendation Contrast Condition Addition Style .3.5. WRITING PROCESS OF BUSINESS REPORTS According to Ur (1996: 168), the process of writing can vary individually, which means there is no right system of writing, there should be only guiding strategies so that learners can experiment and develop their own effective personal ways. Some of the strategies mentioned in Nunan (1991: 90) and Brown (1994: 331) under the analysis of what good writers do are the planning before writing and reviewing and revising after the first draft. The planning will prevent the writer from getting confused when they begin. Skilled writers spend time after writing to revising all levels of lexis, sentence, and discourse and review the meaning. Report writing involves doing research on the subject which must be done as the planning step. Boone, Kurtz and Block (1996: 313) suggest seven steps in writing reports: Step 1: Defining audience and purpose Step 2: Creating a work plan Step 3: Collecting and evaluating data Step 4: Developing the outline Step 5: Writing the first draft Step 6: Revising the document Step 7 Finalizing and submitting the document (Boone, Kurtz, and Block, 1996: 313) The suggested process conforms to the strategies raised by Nunan and Brown with pre- and post-writing work. However, this suggestion can be applied according to personal preference as argued by Ur (1996). CHAPTER SUMMARY Chapter I has explored the literatures available in the fields related to the teaching of writing business reports in English. The literature review includes overviews of English for Business Purposes, the teaching of English writing, and business report as a genre. The discussions of the trends and approaches provide some useful suggestions for the study. First, business reports can be analyzed as a genre under the view of the register analysis and the discourse/genre analysis. Secondly, the needs analysis can function as a guide for teaching. Many of the suggestions for teaching are expected to be found from the analysis. The content-based teaching discussions can lead to effective applications, too. The discussion about the use of English for Business Purposes among non-native speakers can be seen as a guide for learners. It is argued that these speakers cannot and need not speak English as Englishmen do, and one important factor is how effective the communication is, that is how they can understand each other and make themselves understood, not how their English is like that spoken by native speakers. This chapter, being the first of four chapters presenting the study, is responsible for analyzing the secondary sources. The information in this chapter together with primary data which will be analyzed in Chapter III will be based on to provide suggestions for teaching strategies in Chapter IV. CHAPTER II Methodology ii.1. A Description of the course of english for business communication 3 at thang long university Thang Long University is the first Vietnam’s non-state university, which was established in 1988. However, its English Department was not established until 1995. The curriculum for bachelor programs of the English language was based mainly on that of Hanoi Foreign Language Teachers’ Training College, which is now known as College of Foreign Languages under Vietnam National University, Hanoi. For the past few years, approximately 100 students enroll in the English Department, Thang Long University each year. The curriculum has changed due to the development needs. All the students have to undergo two phases, foundation and specialized phases; the second phase can also be further divided into basic courses and core courses. Basic courses are the same for all students in English Department but there are three groups of specialized courses according to the four core courses English in Business, English and Japanese in Business, English for Education, and English in Offices. The first three courses of English for Business Communication are among basic courses, which means all the students in the department have to take these courses, while the courses of English for Business Communication 4 and 5 are only for the bachelor program of English in Offices. Report writing is one of the contents of English for Business Communication 3. Before that, students have undergone English for Business Communication 1 and English for Business Communication 2. English for Business Communication 1 is a foundation of Business Communication, it provides introduction to different business communication skills such as verbal and non-verbal communication, listening skills and intercultural communication strategies. English for Business Communication 2 goes into further details of written communication with different kinds of business letters and memos. The main content of the course English for Business Communication 3 is writing business reports, which takes two-thirds of the course time. The rest of the course deals with employment communication, which includes writing rộsumộs, cover letters and dealing with job interviews. Each course is fulfilled within one semester which lasts nine weeks. Each week, students have one class session of four periods, each lasts 55 minutes. In total, the course takes 33 hours, report writing takes two-thirds of the total time, which means 22 class hours. The class size for English for Business Communication courses in Thang Long University is usually large. The lack of teachers and facilities results in the fact that each class often contains from 30 to 60 students. Unlike other English language courses, English for business communication courses are content-based, because it combines teaching language knowledge together with the subject matter of conventions and skill development in business communication. In the course English for Business Communication 3, the part of business report writing contains several content components including description of what a business report is, how to plan, and research on reports and proposals, why and how to create visuals aids used in reports and proposals, and how to plan, research, write and complete a business report. Also considered within the part are business proposals, which can be considered as a kind of business reports; however, they are more highly structured for presenting detailed plans. The materials available for the part of teaching to write business reports include parts of books in English on business communication and the language learning books on writing reports. The material on business communication provides different approaches of learning and teaching the contents as well as various useful samples. However, these books are designed for the main purpose of training the communication skills, not of teaching a language. Therefore, foreign speakers of English can only learn some knowledge of communication but not appropriate knowledge of using the language. The books dealing with language learning are preferred because they include not only content knowledge but also language teaching items for the purpose of foreign language learners with a lighter emphasis on business. However, for language students at Thang Long University, the business situations in those foreign books are still not familiar. That is why sometimes the materials are adapted to fit learners' background. One obvious feature of this course is that students share the same first language, Vietnamese, which will be used sometimes as a means of communication due to its effectiveness in transferring ideas. So far, the evaluation of the course is carried out mainly through student assessment. Students have to sit in a written 90-minute exam to present the knowledge they have learned, then, do a report writing test and a cover letter writing test. The test results have shown that many students still cannot write a business report in English as required after the course. This is proved at the later part of the study where students' business writing samples are examined. This may be interpreted that the teaching of business writing has not been very successful and needs to be improved, which is the purpose of the study. II.2. DETERMINING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS The study aims firstly at improving the effectiveness of the teaching of business report writing in the course of English for Business Communication 3 by examining the course from the perspective of students and from what students still lack and find difficult. The research questions are: What do language students need in learning to write business reports in English? What are the difficulties for language students in learning to write business reports in English? What are common errors made by students in writing business reports in English? What are effective strategies for teaching how to write business reports in English? The following data analysis is based on two sources: a needs analysis collected through survey questionnaires sent to students participating in the course at Thang Long University and an error analysis of business reports written by students. As suggested in the literature review, the needs analysis is an effective tool in all aspects of designing a syllabus, especially for an ESP course. Specifically, it can answer questions about the learning needs of students which can suggests for the teaching methods and teaching process. A needs analysis would be necessary in the search for teaching strategies. The analysis of the errors in students' writing samples, on the other hand, deals with one of the most complicated stages in the teaching process of writing in a foreign language, the stage of managing errors in giving feedback to students’ writing. By analyzing the errors made by students, the teacher can identify the common errors, the reasons why students make those errors, to find out what students lack. The inference can help with both what to teach and how to teach. II.3. THE SUBJECTS II.3.1. The Subjects for the Needs analysis Questionnaire Survey The first group of subjects is 45 (39 female, 6 male) students of English major at Thang Long University. They are in their early twenties and learn English as a foreign language. The sampling is carried out through the convenient method. These students enrolled in the course of English for Business Communication 3 in Semester 3 of the school year 2004-2005 at Thang Long University. The course began in early April 2005 and lasted until June 4th, 2005. The course is obligatory for all students in the English Department regardless of whether they are specialized in English for Business or not. There is always an imbalanced ratio between male and female students in all English major classes, and in this group, it was 1/6 which could well be a representative ratio of the population. These students are in their third or fourth year and have finished their foundation program in about six semesters or two school years (in Thang Long University, a semester consists of nine weeks and a school year consists of three semesters). In order to enter university these students had to pass an entrance exam in which English accounts for a third of the assessment results. Foreign language programs at universities provide more communicative syllabuses with the practice of the four skills and exams that test all these skills. Teachers are provided with tape recorders and more time is allotted for communicative activities. The assessment is done through the performance of all the four communication skills. Besides English, the foundation and basic specialized programs in the first year at Thang Long University have also provided these students with some business-related courses which will also be analyzed in the questionnaire due to the link to the ability to understand business activities reported in business documents. II.3.2. The Subjects for the Error Analysis of Writing Samples The group consists of 30 students of English Department at Thang Long University, who have just finished the course of English for Business Communication 3 in which business report writing in English is a major topic. This group of samples has the same academic background as the subjects in the questionnaire survey, which means they are second- and third-year students in the English Department, Thang Long University. However, they have finished the course of English for Business Communication 3 one semester earlier, at the second semester of the school year 2004 - 2005. They have also taken the final exam of the course and the exam papers are collected for the data of the study. There are 105 students taking the exam; however, due to the complication in analysis, only 30 papers are collected. Furthermore, it is not necessary to analyze all the 105 papers because the purpose of the analysis is to seek the most common errors that students make when writing reports in business and 30 papers are enough to reveal those errors. The 30 papers are chosen randomly among the 105 exam papers. II.4. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDUREs II.4.1. The Needs Analysis Questionnaire Survey The questionnaire content can be divided into three parts: (1) background information of the respondent’s English and Business studying; (2) questions about the respondent’s general expectations from the course and (3) questions on the respondent’s preference on the teaching strategies for writing business reports in English. This final part, in turn, is further divided into methods of presenting the knowledge, methods of analyzing sample reports, methods of choosing exercises, and strategies of showing and correcting errors in students’ writing. This needs analysis does not contain all what Dudley-Evans (1998: 125) mentions. It will reveal personal information about the learner, and language information about the learner in part (1), learner's needs from the course in part (2), and language learning needs in part (3). In comparison with what needs analysis established as reflected by Dudley-Evans (1998: 125), some factors do not appear in the questionnaire. Although the course is for business purpose, participants who are college students do not have a specific professional target situation. That is why professional information about learners and professional communication information about it can not be analyzed, this, in turn, leads to the fact that learners’ lacks, which is the results of the comparison between them, cannot be analyzed, either. On the other hand, information about the environment of the course has been described in the beginning of this chapter. For parts (1) and (2), most of the questions are multiple-choice and open-ended questions and part (3) includes mostly scale questions. The multiple-choice questions are chosen because they are easy to be analyzed while open questions allow respondents to clarify their reasons or expectations specifically. The scale questions are used for judging the effectiveness of different teaching methods because they provide quantitative judgment for abstract concepts. In this questionnaire, they are chosen for students to scale the effectiveness of teaching methods and the necessity of various issues of the course contents. Unlike the exclusive items where multiple-choice questions are favorable, these methods and issues can be applied more than one at a time with different extents. That is also why the scale questions are more preferred than multiple-choice ones in this part of the questionnaire. II.4.2. The ERROR ANALYSIS of WRITING SAMPLEs In order to collect data for the error analysis of writing samples, 30 exam papers of the achievement assessment are examined and the errors in the answers for the report writing question are counted and categorized. This is the only achievement assessment of the course English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long University. Students are asked to write a business report which accounts for 40% of the course's results as a part of the assessment exam. The subjects were required to write a business report in English when they were sitting in the assessment exam at the end of the course English for Business Communication 3. The exam was designed within 90 minutes in which students have to answer several questions on theoretical knowledge, write a short business report and a letter of application. There are several reasons to choose an exam paper for the purpose of the study. Firstly, students will try their best to write a business report using all the knowledge they have studied. This includes not only what a business report is like but also how to write an effective report. This is different from a classroom exercise because in classroom exercises, students will be drilled only on what has been taught during the session while, in exam, students have to use all the skills and knowledge they have learnt during the whole course. Secondly, the exam is set with a time limit and it takes place in the workroom, which somewhat resembles the situation in business work, where the report writer has to prepare business reports before a deadline and hardly can bring work home. The hypothesized information for the business situation that requires a report to be written has been given for the exam. This assists students to reduce the time wasted making up the information. Also, the controlled content reduced the errors made by the lack of business understanding due to the fact that business knowledge is not a requirement of the course. The question in the exam will be given as follows. As personnel research director of Metro Bank, a large urban bank with many branches, you were assigned six months ago to investigate why there is such high turnover among the tellers and the clerks. You implemented an exit interview program and learned that of the 60 tellers and clerks who quit during that period, 32 gave the heavy rush hour traffic as the main reason; 20 said they wanted to work part time instead; 8 others gave personal reasons. It seems to you that a good solution would be to introduce a more flexible schedule. By altering work schedules you believe that some workers could avoid rush hour driving. Another possibility might be to hire more part-time employees and to allow full-time employees to work part time if they wish. The cost of training new employees is very high. Anything that can be done to reduce turnover and training costs would be worthwhile, you believe. Prepare for Willard Petrol, vice-president of personnel, a report in which you present your findings and make recommendations. Willard has a reputation for being against change. He believes that most modern personnel practices are normally harmful to the organization. (Huseman, Lahiff and Penrose, 1988: 255-256) The answers for this exam question will be analyzed as writing samples, and the errors in these papers will be collected, categorized so that reasons for those errors can be explained and the teacher can help students to avoid the errors. The error analysis of students' writing samples, together with the survey on students' needs, will build up the data necessary for the study so that they can suggest strategies for student-based instructions. The analysis of these data will be presented in the following chapter. CHAPTER III Data Analysis and Discussions III.1. The Needs Analysis Questionnaire Survey III.1.1. STUDENTS' BACKGROUND AND ATTITUDE The total number of questionnaire respondents is 45, of which 6 are male and 39 are female. The average number of years studying English is 9.27 years, ranging from 6 to 13 years. This number reveals that some students started learning English at an age as young as at primary or early junior high school levels. The unanswered questions are not taken into account. It can be said that English-major students have high and positive attitude towards learning English as most of the respondents (32/45) say they chose to study English because they need English for the future career. The second position comes to those who see English as their love (7/45). Only two say they are just trying to pass the English exams at Thang Long University and three think their choice on learning English was a mistake. This means that 11% of the surveyed students have negative attitude to English. The only Other item is the love for the culture. Figure III-1 shows the optimistic views of attitude towards learning the English language among students. Moreover, the respondents have relatively sufficient theoretical knowledge on business. Most of them have finished the course Introduction to Economics during their foundation program at university. Figure III1: Students' Attitude to the English Language As we can see in Figure III-2, students wisely choose the courses that they think more important. More students have finished such courses as Laws on Economy, Finance Management, and Human Resource Management. Courses such as American/British Accounting, Marketing, and Business Organization are the second most popular courses. English for Economics is also a content-based language course with one-fourth of the surveyed students having finished the course before taking English for Business Communication 3. Figure III-2 arranges the courses of business for English department students in the order of number of students having completed. III.1.2. General Expectations of the Course III.1.2.1. The Necessity of the Course For the question “If it is your choice, do you wish to study writing business reports in English?”, there are 36 Yes out of 45 answers, 6 No and 3 questionnaires without any answer. Figure III2: Business Knowledge of the Students The most common reasons for Yes answer are for future career (accounting for three-fourths of the explanations for Yes answers). These students either consider writing business reports a necessary skill for future jobs, useful knowledge of jobs or a requirement when applying for jobs. Another reason is learning to write business reports helps to improve their English and studying skills. The two explanations for No are the course is time- and money-consuming, students only need how to write a short and simple business report, and this course is too difficult and beyond the capability and experience of students. Figure III-3: The Necessity of Studying Business Report Writing The question on the possibility of using the knowledge in future jobs comes out with 31 Yes and 7 No. The result reveals students' expectation about the possibility of using the knowledge learnt in the course in real life. In comparison with the question on the necessity, 28 students say Yes to both questions, which means they think the course is necessary and they will use its knowledge and skills in future. However, some students think the course is necessary though they might never use its knowledge and some others think they will use the knowledge in the future but it is not necessary to learn now. Figure III-4 shows the students' awareness of the usefulness of the course. However, this may be different from the real needs in their future as students cannot totally anticipate their future careers. Figure III4: Students' Expectation on the Usefulness of Learning to Write Business Reports in English III.1.2.2. Students’ Expectations of the Course Contents It can be seen that students highly appreciate the elements in the course content given. All the elements receive more rates 4 or 5 (high scale) than rates 1 or 2 (low scale). Figure III-5 arranges the course contents in the order of the number of students choosing. Language knowledge and knowledge on commonly-used reports get the highest position: each has 32 out of 42 questionnaires coming out with high scale (3 questionnaires have no answers for this question, which is not represented in the figure). Business knowledge gets 28 votes, which can be attributed to students' awareness that the lack of business knowledge affects students’ performance in writing business-related documents. Besides, the teacher seems to be successful in making the students aware of the important role of organizational structure in business report writing with 26 respondents thinking highly of its necessity. 22 respondents think they really need to learn about the writing process. Other items get attention from less than 50% respondents although they still have more high scale. Writing process, research method and visual aids get 22, 21, and 18 responses with high scale respectively. There are no suggestions for other items. Figure III-5: Necessity of Course Contents III.1.2.3. Students' Difficulties Students' difficulties come out in four categories: students' lack of skills and abilities, students' lack of practice experience, difficult knowledge, and difficult course elements. Firstly, 13 out of 45 students say their lacks of experience on practicing writing business reports and business activities affects their understanding about the course contents. In fact, most of the students have never worked in a professional business organization with report writing responsibilities. This is surely a difficulty for understanding because university business-related courses only provide them with some basic knowledge but little or no real experience in business situations. Secondly, some students mentioned their own lacks of writing skills (4), vocabulary knowledge (6), and persuading ability (1) to answer what difficulties they have during the course. Thirdly, the subject knowledge presented in the course tends to exceed some students' understanding as some of the respondents say they still have difficulties with the information (7), organization (4), layout (1), and the writing process (1) of a business report. The course design is also a factor which takes the blame for a lack of instructor's assistance (2) of appropriate materials and textbook (2), of equipment (1), and of the duration the course (1). III.1.2.4. Students' Recommendations for the Course When being asked what suggestions they would like to give to make the course more useful for them, respondents give interesting ideas. The lack of practical experience is shown with 10 responses suggesting more instructions or materials on practical knowledge, the differences among different kinds of business reports. Five suggestions are given on increasing the amount of practicing. Other suggestions include a clearer overview of the subject, examples to make it clear for the students, and more practical knowledge. Samples are also important for the students to study from, as there are 4 suggestions on giving more samples. Not surprisingly, 7 respondents want to study with projectors; three others stress on the attractiveness of teacher’s presenting the knowledge. It is not sure whether students can learn more with projectors but the device certainly increase the interest in the knowledge being presented. One idea specifies that the teacher should create an interesting learning environment by giving students questions for discussion. Two respondents suggest that teacher's correction of students’ errors should be in further details and be spent more time on. One individual idea suggests that teacher give instructions on short paragraphs before teaching writing the whole report. One respondent suggests simplifying the overloaded program. III.1.3. The Choice on teaching Methodology III.1.3.1. Presenting the Knowledge The students are asked to give scale assessment on the effectiveness of the various ways that the teacher presents the content of the course. Figure III-6 shows these methods in the order of students' preference. As the graph suggests, the respondents do not highly-appreciate students' reading with only 7 respondents giving it high rate of assessment but 15 of them assess it as of low effectiveness. The next comes lecturing and discussing with 10 and 15 giving high effectiveness commends respectively. 18 students appreciate the effectiveness of the use of visual aids in explaining knowledge, which represents nearly half of the sample although 15 students think teaching the content through visual facilities is of low effectiveness. A considerable number of students give these teaching strategies average assessment on the effectiveness. This can be inferred that students are not totally satisfied with one specific teaching strategy, in other words, no teaching strategies can please every student every time. Figure III-6: Students' Preference for Different Ways of Presenting Knowledge III.1.3.2. Analyzing Sample Reports Figure III-7 presents students' assessment on different ways to analyzing sample reports. As the teacher shows students sample reports, nearly three-fifths (24 out of 45) of them want the teacher to take the job of explaining it for them. The use of the common first language is appreciated by 12 students who chose to give translation method high rate of assessment. Like translation, students' discussions receive equal numbers of high and low assessment (10 high and 12 low). However, students do not believe that they can understand how to write English business reports just by reading the sample reports themselves. Only 3 respondents give this method high scale while 21 give it low scale. Again, a lot of students assess the strategies with average effectiveness. Figure III7: Students' Preference for Strategies of Analyzing Sample Reports III.1.3.3. Practicing The different types of exercises here include those that are designed for different purposes and for different topics. As suggested by Figure III-8, language exercises with nearly equal numbers of students choosing high (10) and low (11) effectiveness are not as much wanted as exercises aiming at more general purposes. There is a little difference between preferences for exercises set up in business situation and that in the more familiar one of university. Although more students (13) give high appreciation on the effectiveness of campus setting exercises than that of business setting ones, more of them give low preference scale to exercises with university setting. This is to say both business situations and university setting should be chosen. One more time, some respondents choose to give average ranking to the strategies. For this question, all the strategies have the highest number of ranking with scale 3 (average) over other scales. Figure III8: Students' Preference for Different Types of Practicing III.1.3.4. Managing Errors As can be seen from Figure III-9, the students give relatively common ideas on what errors to be identified. The three first choices are mostly (about 80%) considered low effective as most of the responses give low remarks on their effectiveness. They include the cases when the teacher chooses to show one type of errors, show only common errors which occur in a large number of papers, or gives remarks only. However, a large number of the respondents (28) believe that the teacher should show them all possible errors as they rank this choice as highly effective. This finding is somewhat similar to previous studies in the field which show error correction is highly valued and students normally expect their errors to be corrected (Ur, 1996.) However, as teachers will soon realize, some errors are repeated even after the teacher has dealt with it. Figure III9: Students' Preference for What Errors to Be Marked III.1.3.5. Showing Where the Errors Are Figure III-10 presents the responses to the question on the effectiveness of whether the teacher should give suggestions on the kind of errors made by the students. 15 respondents appreciate when their teacher shows them what kinds of errors they made while only 4 of them appreciate their own attempt to guess the errors' types. Most of the students (28) think it is of low effectiveness to get students thinking of the errors and try to find out the problems themselves. In fact, experience shows that a number of students never wonder what the teacher means by underlining parts of the written texts. Figure III-10: Students' Preference for Whether Teacher Should Suggest on Types of Errors III.1.3.6. Giving Feedback to Errors Figure III-11 reveals that all the methods of giving feedback to errors are not highly appreciated, and each method gets less than a quarter of high ranking. For example, the data show that more students gave low scales than high ones for peer-correction (15/11) and self-correction (13/7). Not surprisingly, as few as 5 students appreciate the tedious attempts of rewriting the reports and the same number of students appreciate when the teacher corrects a writing sample. Most of the students (26) gave low scales for sample correction where the teacher chooses a report with representative errors and correct it. Figure III-11: Students' Preference for Ways of Correcting Errors iii.2. Errors Analysis of writing samples The errors in 30 writing texts in the students' exam papers for the report writing question presented at the end of Chapter II are collected and counted. Figure III-12 presents the analysis grid which allows the errors to be divided into four mentioned kinds. The grid also shows the number of errors counted in each kinds and their percentage. In each problem area, the errors will be further divided and analyzed. As can be seen from the grid, there are four expected categories of errors: errors in content, organization, presentation, and language. Firstly, errors that reveal the students' lack of understanding the report content or meaning are called errors in content. These include the misinterpretations of information provided by the test question, failures in conveying the meaning intended, or unexpected appearance or missing of information. The errors in content are arranged according to the parts of the report. Secondly, errors in organization are ones that undermine the smooth flow of the report. These include illogical arrangements of report elements, overlapped parts, or failures in ensuring the report's coherence or unity. Next, the report presentation is ineffective if the writer does not follow the conventions for the layout and design. This report should be written in a memo form because this is an internal report which is prepared by the personnel research director to the vice-president of the same organization (Metro Bank). However, students who are not aware of that may write it in letter or inappropriate memo forms. Also, it must have expected presentation of headings and lists of information as well as visual aids. Lastly, errors in language come out in five subtypes: grammar errors, orthographical errors i.e. spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors, sentence errors, vocabulary errors, and errors in style. Figure III-12 below shows the results of the error categorization. As can be seen from the table, the most common errors tend to be that of language, which appeared on all the analyzed papers. Language errors accounted for 77% of all the errors counted. The second most common errors are that of content and information where 11% of the errors occur. Organization and presentation seem to be the most successful areas with the least number of errors counted (accounting for 7 and 4.5% of errors respectively). To get in further detail, please see Figure III-12. The identifying and interpreting of errors encounter some vague boundaries that needs to be clarified. Firstly, for the phrases that contain more than one error, all the errors will be taken into account. Similarly, when two or more errors are created by one single reason, all the errors are counted. An example is in paper 21, where a misunderstanding in the distribution of the report caused the writer to prepare the report in the form of an external letter instead of an internal memo. The same reason led to the wrong use of possessive adjective "your company" while it should be “our company." In this case, the writer interpreted the information wrongly. Thirdly, some wrong pieces are difficult to be arranged to a specific type of error. There is a common error with the last remark of high training costs in the exam question. However, more often than not, students think of this as a result of research and present it in the finding section while this should appear in the conclusion. This causes an illogical organizational structure; however, this can be interpreted as an error in content since the cause is students' misunderstanding of the information presented. Last but not least, some errors are repeated several times in the same paper, they are all counted and each is seen as one error unit. Content Organization Presentation Language Number of errors 36 22 14 241 Percentage 11.5 7 4.5 77 Problem areas 7 subject line 7 statement of purpose 6 discussion of findings 7 recommendations 12 conclusions 1 the whole report 1 logical order 19 separate parts 1 coherence 1 unity 4 memo layout 9 headings and lists presentation 1 visual aid 118 grammar 7 orthography 5 sentences 92 vocabulary 19 style Figure III12: Results of Error Counting III.2.1. Errors in the Report Content Content information is not the only requirements of a business report, but it is of great necessity when writing a meaningful report. In this exercise, the content has been given and students’ responsibility is just to presented the provided information in such a way that the reader can read with ease. However, two papers have not been finished (papers 07 and 12) due to the time limit, and some reports have been finished without some expected parts. Papers 06, 08 and 11 have no conclusions on the necessity of reducing training costs. This can be explained through the lack of understanding of the information provided in the question. The same reason leads to the fact that some reports use this given information as a part of the findings. Firstly, the wrong information in the TO, FROM, DATE, and SUBJECT areas can be attributed to the carelessness of the students (papers 08, 14 and 16). Also, the subject line is sometimes forgotten, or it includes general ideas. One example is the subject line in paper 03, “Solutions to improve the MT Bank’s turnover among tellers and clerks”, while the bank in the hypothesis case is trying to reducing turnover among tellers and clerks. Another problem with the subject line is that some subject lines are too general and do not provide readers with clear view of the report content. For example, “Problems in MT bank and some solutions” (15) should be more specific with a phrase determining the "problems". Secondly, some students do not include a statement of purpose or do include but give an unclear one. This proves that students are not well aware of the requirements of the statement of purpose's content. For the most extensive part, the discussions of findings, a great number of students misinterpret the information given, resulting in illogical content idea. One example of this is in paper 04: “The situation leads to the fact that the cost of training new employees is very high. Therefore, I would like to make recommendations to solve this problem.” In fact, as the information given in the question, "the cost of training new employees is very high" is a general fact, and the situation of high turnover among the tellers and the clerks in Metro Bank will create the needs for training, which will cost the bank a lot due to that fact. The student made a mistake on the relationship of cause and effect. Some students use creativity in their report by inventing some information. One example is a specified schedule when mentioning the new schedule in detail as the first recommendation (06). The creativity can be encouraged as long as it does not affect the meaning of other fixed information, which is provided by the question. However, there is sometimes confusion in the understanding of these students and the creation sometimes change the original information. An example is in paper 06 where the students explain, "Because the cost of training new employees is very high, we can use our employees to train new person who want to join the company[. So that] we can reduce the cost of training." In fact, the main purpose of the report is to reduce employee turnover in order to reduce the training costs. Finally, some conclusions are weak in meaning due to the poor understanding of the writers. For example, "I hope this report give you a satisfaction. It could help you deal with the current difficulties" (10), while, in fact, the writer should try to persuade the reader to agree with the suggestions presented as the reader Willard "has a reputation for being against change", and the writer cannot expect "a satisfaction". In conclusion, in most of the cases, errors in meaning are caused by the lack of comprehension in reading the information in the question. One important task of the teacher, therefore, is to make students more familiar with business situations and activities. III.2.2. Errors in Organization It seems that students master well the logical organization of the report although there are still some problems. Some of these problems are due to the inappropriate application of report samples studied in class into this exercise. Paper 24, for example, fails to set a logical and discrete organization. In this example, after the statement of purpose, the writer gives the background information of the bank being a large urban bank with many branches and ends with “so we need to have suitable [solution] to make MT bank have a more flexible schedule” without any description of the problem. The report follows with a remark on the training cost under the heading “Available price”, which should be a remark in the conclusions to ensure the attempt to reduce training and turnover costs. Many students have another problem with interpreting the significance of the remark on high training costs. Two-thirds of the paper put it together with the recommendations, which weakens the logic of the report. As for coherence, there is only one error recorded in paper 14 where a lack of transitions makes the parts of the report broken. Besides, the unity of paper 25 is ruined when an unrelated sentence is inserted in the middle of the flow. III.2.3. Errors in Presentation The first error among those of presentation is an error of layout, in which the students do not use the form for the report as expected, in which, the letter format is used instead of the memo format. Moreover, even in memo form, some elements of letter layout have been used (01, 03, 16, 21, and 28). Examples include salutation forms like "Dear Mr. Willard Petrol," "Yours sincerely,". It is required that reports use headings to separate parts, and the headings in the same level must be highlighted and parallel in structure. However, some reports include no headings, which causes difficulty for reading; those are paper 05 and 26, paper 25 does have one heading for the research results but none for other major parts. In some papers however, the headings do not have parallel structures (10, 13, 24, and 30). For example, in paper 10, the headings are "One [solution]: Problem of turnover", "Another [solution]", and "[Advantage] of the change", in which heading one includes two phrases, heading two and three each includes only one phrase. Besides headings, some listed items which should also be parallel in structure fail to do this. An example is in paper 17 which has the following list: Recommendations: I suggest that the [flowing] solutions can change this problem By altering work schedules some workers could avoid rush hour driving Hiring more part-time employees Allowing full-time employees to work part time if they wish (Paper 17) Finally, since the use of visual aids is not obligatory, there is only one visual aid in paper 02. The visual is a pie chart which shows the percentage of employees who chose to quit their jobs for different reasons. The use of visual aids is encouraged because the student showed that he or she has acquired the knowledge and has applied that knowledge. The designing of this pie chart, however, does not follow the conventions mentioned in the class. The visual does not have a title, and this loses a chance to introduce the most important message of the visual to readers and to help readers understand the labels. What is more, the first segment did not start at the top of the circle (at twelve o’clock position) and the segments are arranged neither in the order of logic nor in the order of size. The conventions such as these of designing pie charts and some other commonly used visual aids have been all introduced in class. III.2.4. Errors in Language In communicative language teaching approach, language errors are analyzed after other errors of content have been analyzed because content errors are considered to hinder communicative competence much more than form ones. Grammatical errors of preposition seems outnumbers others. Phrases like “investigation about reasons...,” "some (^) following findings", "analyzed for the increase ...", "reduce the rate (^) turnover..." occur in most papers. Other common grammatical errors include those with verb forms, plural and singular nouns, and incomplete sentences as subordinate clauses. Errors on part of speech, word order, articles, pronouns, passive/active voice and modal verbs occur far less often but still show the students’ weakness on language. Besides these errors in general language, however, the study also emphasizes on errors in typical report language. Some grammatically correct sentences seem to have problems with conciseness. An example of a too long sentence is shown in paper 30, “ According to the investigation, the turnover among the tellers and the clerks is very high with 60 tellers and clerks who quit during six months, 32 gave the heavy rush-hour traffic as the main reason, 20 said they wanted to work part-time instead, 8 others gave personal reasons.” Besides, sentences with empty expressions or sentences with parts repeating the mentioned ideas are common. The study shows that vocabulary usage is one weakness of these students. A great number of vocabulary wrong choice occur. Wrong phrases include both everyday language and business terms. Some examples include “change employment”, “improve the problem”, ”improve the new situation”, “time job.” Some serious errors appear in the headings. The wrong choice of words in the heading will result in wrong guide for the reader to follow the information presented in the report. Especially, the word “solutions” are used too often for headings with recommendations. Some errors on vocabulary affect the understanding of the content of the report. For example, the wrong use of the headings results in that the content within the headings do not comply with the headings and may cause difficulty in understanding for readers. What go under the heading “Advantages of the changes” are mainly description on what should be changed, not advantages, and “Proposals” is the heading for the introduction and contains no proposal (5). One remark is that these headings are copied from a sample report that students analyzed in class. Furthermore, errors in language use can cause misunderstanding on the content. In paper 17, for example, it is stated that “throughout the interview, I would like to give out the following findings:” Style is another field with a great number of errors, most students do not have enough understanding on the expected style of business reports. A lot of words are used with correct meanings but do not match the report style. Some examples include simple words like "a bit later", "do all the things well", or phrasal verbs like "put into use," "look into". Sentence structures are sometimes informal and personal too, for example, "It is really necessary", "It means that", and "I believe." Contractions like “I’m", "don’t", "can’t be", and "they’ll" are used rather often. The reason for those errors may be the students' unawareness of the rules on styles in different types of discourse. With understanding about the above-analyzed errors, the instructor will realize the students' lacks of knowledge and skills. This will hopefully result in the fact that properly designed teaching, practice and feedbacks will be applied to facilitate students' learning to write effective business reports in English. III.3. Conclusions Two positive findings of the study is the students' awareness of the importance of the learning of business report writing and the motivation of students in learning English and the course of English for business communication. However, respondents are not really aware of the real situations which require business reports to be written. That is why they have low cognition on the reasons to learn to write business reports. As the combination of the questionnaire survey and the error analysis suggests, there are some conflictions between the amount of studying and students' performance. Firstly, the students of the course can be said to have studied the English language for long duration; however, the most serious problem with the assessment paper in the error analysis is of language, and one of the most wanted elements of the course is language knowledge including vocabulary and structures used in business reports. Secondly, most of them have studied business but their view on business knowledge seems vague and their most serious difficulty, as they say, is to understand business activities. Students' needs analysis also suggests on the contents of the course in which language and business knowledge is emphasized. Besides, the amount of practice should be improved for students to have more chance to work in the field. Moreover, it is not surprising that the students seem not really familiar with some of the modern teaching and learning methods. The students do not highly appreciate the effectiveness of self-studying through reading materials. This may be blamed for the inactiveness of Vietnamese students who have gotten used to sitting in classroom, listening to lectures and doing the dictation passively and they have modest skills of searching and analyzing materials. Furthermore, the students prefer the teacher's explanation and translation of sample reports to students' reading and discussion. These findings are really significant in adjusting the content and teaching strategies of how to write business reports in English in the course of English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long University. They will be considered during the process of looking for effective teaching strategies that suit the teaching context. These strategies will be discussed in the following chapter. CHAPTER IV Implications for Teaching Strategies The study is to find out the effective strategies of teaching how to write business reports in English for English-major students at Thang Long University. Therefore, these implications will deal with various steps in the teaching process. iv.1. implications for Presenting the Knowledge It can be said that this content-based course of English for Business Communication 3 has a balance between the language elements and the subject content. The language elements include both specific vocabulary and structures used in business world, especially in business writing. The major language skill to be developed here is writing. However, students need to have reading skill at certain level in order to understand what the teacher and the materials say, and to comprehend the data provided to practice writing reports. The subject content of this part of the course includes knowledge on the uses, requirements and some tips and other insights to be successful in writing business reports. IV.1.1. PRESENTING LANGUAGE ELEMENTS Classroom time should be divided for teaching both language and the subject knowledge. However, the course is not required to provide new language items but to use the known ones in various business situations and to develop writing skills. Therefore, students' awareness of language items should be raised through tasks and exercises designed for the purpose. The teacher can apply task-based learning here for teaching language elements. As a newly emerged trend, task-based learning is considered not only a motivating tool but also an effective way to raise the students' consciousness. In tasked-based learning, students are motivated because there are specific tasks' outcomes for them to fulfill; therefore, they know for sure when they have reached an achievement and they can enjoy the satisfaction. Also, in order to fulfill the task, students have to find appropriate language to negotiate and to solve problems, which approaches learning from the students' awareness of the needs to use the knowledge. For example, in teaching language typical of business report genre, the teacher can combine reading tasks of report samples with writing tasks. Students may discuss on the use of language in the samples and use the language in writing tasks. By fulfilling tasks like these, students' awareness of language can be raised. Besides, language can also be taught through providing exercises, which will be discussed in further details in the next part of designing exercises. The