Tài liệu Evaluating the textbook “law” a study at faculty of law ho chi minh city university of technology

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ----------------- EVALUATING THE TEXTBOOK “LAW” A STUDY AT FACULTY OF LAW- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Submitted to the Faculty of English language in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in English language Course code: 1641900 By NGUYEN HUYEN QUANG Supervised by NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, PHD HO CHI MINH CITY, March 2018 CERTIFICATION OF THESIS DEFENSE THE THESIS WAS WRITTEN AT HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Academic supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Kiều Thu, Ph.D The thesis defense session was conducted at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) on 6th April, 2018. The Board of Examiners for the Master’s Thesis Defense TT 1 2 3 4 5 NAME Lê Thị Thanh, Ph.D Nguyễn Đăng Nguyên, Ph.D Trần Quốc Thao, Ph.D Lê Văn Tuyên, Ph.D Nguyễn Hòa Mai Phương, Ph.D FUNCTION Chair Reader 1 Reader 2 Member Secretary Member On behalf of the Board of Examiners Chair Lê Thị Thanh, Ph.D HCMC UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE Ho Chi Minh City, April 2018 MASTER’S THESIS TASK REPORT Student name: Nguyen Huyen Quang Sex:Female Date of birth: 30th March, 1988 Place of birth: Binh Dinh Major: English Language Student code: 1641900023 I- Thesis title: Evaluating the textbook “Law”- A study at Faculty of Law, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. II- Task description and contents: This study focuses on an evaluation of the textbook “Law” that based on the evaluation of students of law at Faculty of Law-HUTECH. On the basis of the data collected from a survey based on questionnaire for law students, findings about the suitability of the textbook “Law” for the students’ needs as well as the local needs were drawn out. However, a number of aspects of the textbook “Law” were found to be necessarily adjusted and the recommendations were made. III- Starting date: 01st August, 2017. IV- Completing date: 18th March, 2018. V- Academic supervisor: Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Ph.D. SUPERVISOR FACULTY DEAN Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Ph.D Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Ph.D i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: Evaluating the textbook “Law”- A study at Faculty of Law – Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. In terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Faculty of English language, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. Ho Chi Minh City, March 2018 Nguyễn Huyền Quang ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Nguyen Huyen Quang, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Art (English Language), accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposit in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan and reproduction for theses. Ho Chi Minh City, March 2018 Signature: Nguyễn Huyền Quang iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My special thanks are due to all those who have made great contributions to the preparation and completion of the thesis. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Ph.D, for her constant guidance and invaluable detailed comments on every chapter of the thesis. Without her support and guidance, this thesis would never have been completed. I am also very grateful to Mr Nguyen Dang Nguyen, Ph.D, who gave me priceless advice and assistance in the process of doing the research. In addition, I would like to thank the Faculty of Law – Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology for organizing the extracurricular activity in teaching Legal English. I would like to express my gratitude to the Legal English teachers of University of Law of Ho Chi Minh City, Human Resources Managers and staffs of YKVN, KevinChia, Phuoc& Partners, KPMG, Unilever for their enthusiastic participation in the survey and their permission for the information to be used. I am also thankful to the law students, who were joining in the course and were willing to give their own opinions and make useful suggestions for the textbook “Law”. Last, but not least, I warmly thank my family for their encouragement and help. iv ABSTRACT Legal English is a new branch at Faculty of Law of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology that has not included in the curriculum of Faculty of Law. As a new branch, the textbook “Law” in the series of Career Paths of Express Publishing has been first applied as the extracurricular activity for the Faculty. With an aim to improve the quality of the textbook “Law”, this study focuses on an evaluation of the textbook “Law” that based on the evaluation of students of law in terms of aims and approaches, format and organization, illustration, topics, accompanying materials, language contents, language skills and activities contained in this textbook. The main method of this research was mixed method design which includes both qualitative and quantitative data. On the basis of the data collected from a survey based on questionnaire for law students, findings about the suitability of the textbook “Law” for the students’ needs as well as the local needs were drawn out. However, a number of aspects of the textbook “Law” were found to be necessarily adjusted and the recommendations were made. Key words: ESP; Textbook; Material evaluation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY....................................................................... i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ...........................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ viii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1 1.1. Background to the study ..............................................................................1 1.2. Problem statement .......................................................................................2 1.3. Purpose of the study ....................................................................................3 1.4. Thesis statement ..........................................................................................3 1.5. Scope of the study ........................................................................................3 1.6. Significance of the study..............................................................................4 1.7. Limitations of the study ...............................................................................4 1.8. Organization of the study ............................................................................5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................ 6 2.1. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) ...........................................................6 2.1.1. Overview of English for Specific Purposes ............................................6 2.1.2. Relationship between General English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) ....................................................................................................7 2.1.3. Legal English and its characteristics .......................................................9 2.2. Materials ...................................................................................................12 2.2.1. Definition of materials ..........................................................................12 2.2.2. Materials evaluation criteria..................................................................13 2.2.3. Components of good materials .............................................................14 2.2.4. Materials for legal English ....................................................................17 2.3. Materials evaluation .................................................................................21 2.3.1. Definition of materials evaluation.........................................................21 vi 2.3.2. Purpose of materials evaluation ............................................................21 2.3.3. Framework for materials evaluation .....................................................22 2.3.4. Conceptual framework for materials evaluation in the current study ...26 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ......................................................................... 28 3.1. Research question ..........................................................................................28 3.2. Research design .............................................................................................28 3.3. Research site ..................................................................................................29 3.4. Description of the textbook “Law” ................................................................30 3.5. Sample and sampling procedures ..................................................................31 3.5.1. Selection of participant ...........................................................................31 3.5.2. Characteristics of participant ..................................................................32 3.5.3. Research instrument ................................................................................32 3.6. Data collection procedures ............................................................................34 3.7. Data analysis procedures ...............................................................................34 CHAPTER 4 ............................................................................................................ 36 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................................................... 36 4.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................36 4.2. Results ............................................................................................................36 4.2.1. Aims and approaches (Question 1, 2, 3, 4) .............................................36 4.2.2. Formats and organizations of the textbook (Question 5, 6, 7, 8) ............40 4.2.3. Illustrations of the textbook (Question 9, 10) .........................................45 4.2.4. Accompanying materials (Question 11) .................................................47 4.2.5. Topics (Question 12, 13, 14) ...................................................................47 4.2.6. Language contents (Question 15, 16, 17, 18, 19) ...................................50 4.2.7. Skills (Question 20, 21, 22, 23) ..............................................................55 4.2.8. Activities (Question 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30) ......................................58 4.2.9. Students’ expectations about the textbook ..............................................64 4.3. Discussions on remarkable strengths and weaknesses of the textbook “Law” ...............................................................................................................................66 vii CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION ......................... 75 5.1. Recommendations ..........................................................................................75 5.1.1. Recommendations from opinions of law students ..................................75 5.1.2. Recommendations from stakeholders .....................................................77 5.1.2.1. Recommendations from Legal English teachers' opinions ..............77 5.1.2.2. Recommendations from the administrator' opinions .......................78 5.1.2.3. Recommendations from enterprises' opinions .................................80 5.1.3. Synthesis of recommendations................................................................81 5.2. Conclusion ......................................................................................................82 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 84 APPENDIX 1: ............................................................................................................ 1 DESCRIPTION OF 15 UNITS IN THE TEXTBOOK “LAW”............................ 1 APPENDIX 2: ............................................................................................................ 5 SAMPLE LESSON PLAN ....................................................................................... 5 APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese Version) ................................. 13 APPENDIX 4: QUESTIONNAIRE (English Version) ........................................ 18 APPENDIX 5: .......................................................................................................... 22 REPLACEMENT TEST TO ENTER THE TRIAL LEGAL ENGLISH CLASS22 APPENDIX 6: .......................................................................................................... 27 EXAMPLES ON LATIN TERMS ......................................................................... 27 APPENDIX 7: .......................................................................................................... 31 EXAMPLES ON OLD-FASHIONED WORDS................................................... 31 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1. Should Legal English be included in legal curriculum as a main subject?36 Table 4.2. Which year of students can study Legal English? ................................... 38 Table 4.3. Legal English should focus on particular section? Give reasons............. 38 Table 4.4. The textbook is suitable to students' need in studying Legal English. .... 39 Table 4.5. The content in each lesson is clear. .......................................................... 41 Table 4.6. Reading comprehension, vocabulary, listening, speaking, writing sections are ordered logically. ................................................................................................. 42 Table 4.7. The textbook reminds in knowledge for learners to review. ................... 43 Table 4.8. The textbook reminds in knowledge for learners to review. ................... 44 Table 4.9. Illustrations are very attractive. ................................................................ 45 Table 4.11. The illustrations are functional in involving your attention to the lesson content ....................................................................................................................... 46 Table 4.12. Speed of recordings is suitable for your comprehension. ...................... 47 Table 4.13. The topics meet your interests. .............................................................. 48 Table 4.14. The topics are interesting. ...................................................................... 49 Table 4.15. The topics offer the possibility of enriching your awareness of your Legal English. ........................................................................................................... 49 Table 4.16. The textbook offers hands-on experience when practicing legal English.50 Table 4.17. The textbook offers enough a number of necessary grammatical structures. .................................................................................................................. 51 Table 4.18. The language in the textbook helps learners understand obviously the Lawyers' communication in the practicing law......................................................... 52 Table 4.19. The textbook provides enough the necessary specific vocabulary used in law. ............................................................................................................................ 53 Table 4.20. The specific vocabulary in the textbook meets students' needs in studying Legal English. ............................................................................................. 54 Table 4.21. Reading section is suitable to learners' level. ........................................ 55 Table 4.22. Listening section is suitable to learners' level. ....................................... 56 ix Table 4.23. Speaking section is suitable to learners' level. ....................................... 57 Table 4.24. Writing section is suitable to learners' level. ......................................... 58 Table 4.25. The activities in the textbook help learners improve their language skills. ......................................................................................................................... 58 Table 4.26. The activities in the textbook help learners improve their practicing in law. ............................................................................................................................ 60 Table 4.27. The activities in the textbook help learners review their knowledge from previous lessons. ....................................................................................................... 61 Table 4.28. The activities in the textbook help learners feel more confident. .......... 62 Table 4.29. Pair work, group work, individual work is suitable to your English level. .......................................................................................................................... 63 Table 4.30. In your opinion, in the textbook “Law” which section…? .................... 64 Table 4.31. Which items in the textbook "Law" do students like the best? ............. 64 Table 4.32. Which items in the textbook "Law" do students not interested in? ....... 65 x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS EAP English for Academic Purposes EEP English for Educational Purposes EOP English for Occupational Purposes ESP English for Specific Purposes GE General English HUTECH Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology 1 Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION Nowadays, the term “Legal English” is no longer strange to people in the world. Legal English can be easily understood as English taught for Law which is taught for both law students and law practitioners. Over the last few decades, there has been an expansion of commercial activities across national territory. As a matter of fact, Legal English has already become a global language that achieved by parties who join in commercial activities. It is a fact that Legal English can achieve a lot of benefits from using it. People who possess a good Legal English can have many opportunities to choose a good job and conditions of working environment. This chapter presents the background to the study including the development of English in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City, and the role of Legal English at work, followed by the indispensable parts of any study: the problem statement, the purpose, the limitations, and finally the organization of the study. Also included in this chapter is the description of the textbook “Law” which is taught at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. 1.1. Background to the study Vietnam has not developed yet in terms of economy when the people had just overcome the damages caused by the war. During this time, the Vietnamese Government applied the closed-door policy, which prohibited any economic deals with any foreign countries except for the Soviet Union and the socialist countries, and the State subsidized most of the home projects. Consequently, people had not taken much care of legal field. It was a turning point when Vietnam officially joined in the WTO in 2006 and a wide range of foreign companies have invested in Vietnam. They have realized that Vietnam has a convenient environment in terms of geography and low labor cost. Besides, a number of home companies have exported their products to many countries in the world. In such a context, it is crucial for foreign companies to have knowledge of Vietnamese laws and vice versa, and for Vietnamese companies to have knowledge of international laws. 2 Being the city whose economy is considered the leading of the country, Ho Chi Minh City is home for a large number of foreign and Vietnamese companies and representative offices of multinational corporations. It is important for these agents to be aware of the regulations of Vietnamese Government regardless of whether foreigners could be permitted to conduct their business in our territory or not. Only do when they certainly have legal knowledge that they would get a high promotion and bring the reputation both for their own companies and nation. If a company is not good at legal systems of the countries in which they are dealing with, it would be dangerous for their business in drafting contracts, writing legal documents that could make mistakes caused by lacking of legal perceptions. Hence, it is necessary to pay attention to legal English and its roles in legal studies for lawyers and other legal officers who work in law field to apply in their practicing. According to Tiersma (1999), Legal English refers to the type of English used in legal writing. It has been referred to as a “sublanguage”, as legal English differs from ordinary language in vocabulary, morphology, syntax and semantics, as well as other linguistic features. It is a technical language specifically originated as a language for legal professionals such as judges, lawyers, legal assistants and attorneys. A specialized use of certain terms and linguistic patterns governs the teaching of legal language. Thus, studying legal language is as a kind of second language, a specialized use of vocabulary, phrases, and syntax that helps users such as judges, lawyers, legal assistants and attorneys to communicate more easily with one other with accuracy and precision. 1.2. Problem statement It is necessary for Vietnamese lawyers, legal officers as well as people who work in law fields to be good at legal English to give appropriate consultancy to foreign investors as well as Vietnamese enterprises when they wish to invest in newly emerging business lines or other legal fields. However, there exists a problem that not many Vietnamese people who work in the law field can possess substantial legal English knowledge. Consequently, there is an urgent need to train those 3 working in the law field in such a way that they could communicate in English at work. On the other hand, not many Law universities in Ho Chi Minh City offer Legal English into their curriculum for law students. It is only Law University of Ho Chi Minh City and Faculty of Law of Huflit University that apply this subject as a main one to their curriculum. However, when teaching this subject, teachers have to search information on the Internet and refer to foreign books to adapt them to Legal Contexts of Vietnam instead of using an original textbook. In the Faculty of Law of HUTECH University, Legal English is considered as important but it has not been taught yet because there is a lack of Legal English materials. In the Vietnamese context, there are a number of studies which evaluate General English materials but it is in lack of studies which evaluate English for Specific Purposes materials, Law in particular. 1.3. Purpose of the study This study aims to evaluate the textbook “Law” of Express Publishing to find out whether it is suitable for the students and whether it meets the target needs or not in terms of aims and approaches, format and organization, illustration, topics, accompanying materials, language contents, language skills and activities. 1.4. Thesis statement Based on the fact that Legal English is a new subject at the Faculty of Law- HUTECH University and there are not many standard Legal English textbooks, this study attempts to survey the students’ attitude toward the material and to reveal whether it satisfies the employment requirements in the area of Ho Chi Minh City. The research is guided by the following question: How do the students of Faculty of Law – HUTECH evaluate the textbook “Law”? 1.5. Scope of the study In the scope of this study, the author only used the textbook “Law” in the series of Career Paths of Express Publishing for the reason that this textbook has 4 been applied for the first time at the university; therefore, students’ evaluation is very important after the first application of the textbook. Moreover, the author only sought for answers about students’ evaluation toward the textbook “Law” in terms of its physical appearances, its language contents, skills and activities. The study does not try to give empirical evidence of its effectiveness in improving proficiency of English for students. 1.6. Significance of the study This study contributes to the background theory of materials evaluation by investigating how law students of Faculty of Law of HUTECH evaluate the textbook “Law”. The result of this study would help teachers, students and the university administrators not only know the crucial role of Legal English, help design the English courses in the Faculty of Law- so that the law students could effectively communicate in English at work, but also find out whether the textbook “Law” in Career Path could be used in teaching in reality or not. Hence, the study might have a useful insight towards the textbook so that teachers will use and adapt the textbook more effectively. 1.7. Limitations of the study As for the participants, the amount who joined in the survey is comparatively small - only 37, which is considered a disadvantage in getting the research subjects’ responses to questionnaire. On the other hand, the Faculty of Law of HUTECH has been newly established in 2014. Thus, at the conducting time to do this thesis, there are not fourth-year students and nor alumi to evaluate their using Legal English in their job. Another disadvantage of the survey is the limited number of teachers involving in teaching the textbook “Law”. There are not any teachers who teach this textbook before the experiment teaching described in this study. Besides, there are only three teachers in Ho Chi Minh City who specialize in teaching legal English. 5 1.8. Organization of the study This study consists of five chapters: Chapter One presents the introduction of the study. In this chapter, the background to the study, the problem statement, the purpose of the study, the description of the textbook “Law”, and the limitations of the study are included. Chapter Two covers an overview of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), especially Legal English, the characteristics of Legal English, the issues related to the materials in general and materials evaluation in particular, typically materials for Legal English. The final part of this chapter is the presentation of the framework for materials evaluation including the criteria for evaluating materials, especially English for Specific Purposes materials. Chapter Three focuses the methodology of the research. Apart from the research questions, this chapter presents the research designs, which included the method of the study, accordingly, qualitative with descriptive statistics method was employed. This chapter also refers to the sample and sampling procedure including the selections and characteristics of the participant, the description of the research subject. The author also describes in detail the research instrument used for collecting data, which is questionnaire. For ending this chapter, the procedures of data collection and analysis were mentioned. Chapter Four, is divided into three parts: introduction, results from the responses to the questionnaires collected from the research subject, the discussions drawn out from these results. These discussions will help to answer the research questions and to make reasonable recommendation for the textbook “Law”. Chapter Five, the last chapter of the thesis is concerned with the necessary recommendations for the textbook “Law” based on the findings presented in Chapter Four, and the recommendations for designing or adapting the textbook in teaching legal English o law students at HUTECH will be followed by the conclusion of the study. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of the research. It is divided into three main sections. 2.1. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) 2.1.1. Overview of English for Specific Purposes ESP has grown to become one of the most prominent areas of English language teaching since early 1960s. ESP develops in both fields of research and practice, which is known “essentially as a material and teaching-led movement” (Dudley-Evans and St. John, 1998). Is is considered that ESP comprises of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and EOP (English for Occupational Purposes). Among that, Jordan (1997) pointed out that the term ‘English for academic purposes’ appeared in 1974 and EAP is also called EEP (English for Educational Purposes). There are a number of definitions of ESP. Anthony (1997) stated that ESP is the teaching of English used in academic studies or the teaching of English for vocational or professional purposes. Robinson (1980) defined it as the teaching of English to the learners who have specific goals and purposes. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) have claimed ESP as an “approach” rather than a “product”. It means that ESP does not necessarily involve any particular kind of language, teaching materials or methodology. The fundamental function of ESP is to focus on the learners’ needs. According to Kennedy and Bolitho (1984), some of those needs are important for their studies, whereas others are crucial for their work and profession. Therefore, from these above definitions, ESP is considered as a learner – centered approach to teaching English, which focuses on developing communicative competence in a specific discipline. Dudley – Evans and Maggie (2000) have stated that it is needs analysis and discourse analysis that are two components of ESP. Needs analysis deals with analysis of learner needs, with identifying learner wants and purposes as integral and obligatory elements in materials design. Meanwhile, discourse analysis refers to 7 the examination of the written or oral language, generally for purposes of designing curricular materials. Different types of learners have various needs in studying language which leads to different types of ESP. Orr (2002) claimed that there are three characteristics of ESP. First, ESP is a specific subset of the English language that is required to carry out specific tasks for specific purposes. Secondly, ESP is a branch of language education that studies and teaches subsets of English to assist learners in successfully carrying out specific tasks for specific purposes. Finally, ESP is a movement that has popularized the ESP profession and its work with ESP discourse. 2.1.2. Relationship between General English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) According to Robinson (1980), GE (also called English for General Purposes EGP) prepares students for the kind of English they need in everyday situation. GE class programs are designed to effectively develop communication skills and fluency in speaking, listening, reading, grammar, pronunciation and writing. In teaching English as a foreign language, GE is at the same rank as ESP, consisting of different levels, such as primary, secondary, tertiary or adults. GE is aimed to teach general language to the learners whose needs are broadly defined, therefore, teachers tend to impart knowledge of the proficiency. Moreover, GE is a nontechnical term for English when the language at large is contrasted with usage, variety, dialect, or register. Hutchinson et al. (1987) pointed out the difference between the ESP and GE that “in theory nothing, in practice a great deal” which means that a teacher who teaches ESP should closely work with an expert in the field or be well equipped with excellent knowledge in specific field. ESP differs from GE in the sense that ESP is used in particular teaching circumstances, it is an advanced approach as compared to General English. The design of syllabus for ESP is directed towards serving the needs of learners seeking for or developing themselves in a particular occupation or specializing in a specific