Sử dụng các nhiệm vụ mô phỏng trong giảng dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành

NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ HỌC
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USING SIMULATION TASKS IN ESP VOCABULARY TEACHING 
SỬ DỤNG CÁC NHIỆM VỤ MÔ PHỎNG TRONG GIẢNG 
DẠY TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH
Đặng Thị Thanh
Email: dangthanhhd79@gmail.com 
Sao Do University
Date received: 6/01/2017 
Date of post-review correction 24/12/2017 
Release date: 28/3/2018
Abstract
In teaching vocabulary in general and English for Special Purpose (ESP) vocabulary in particular, teachers 
employ many techniques and activities in order to help their students retain learned lexical items. The 
study was carried out with the aim to: (1) investigate the difficulties encountered by the students of 
Automotive Engineering Technology Department (AETD), Sao Do University (SDU) when learning ESP 
vocabulary, (2) find out the techniques/activities that teachers at SDU used in teaching ESP vocabulary, 
and (3) exam how far the use of simulation tasks improves ESP vocabulary for the students at AETD, 
SDU. The findings show that pronunciation and retention of word meaning are factors prevent students 
from mastering vocabulary and among various techniques and activities employed by the teachers at 
SDU, simulation tasks prove its effectiveness in the ESP vocabulary improvement of the students.
Keywords: Vocabulary; ESP vocabulary; simulation task; English for Automotive Engineering.
Tóm tắt
Trong việc giảng dạy từ vựng nói chung, từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành nói riêng, giáo viên đã sử 
dụng rất nhiều hoạt động nhằm giúp sinh viên nắm bắt được từ vựng. Nghiên cứu này được thực hiện 
nhằm (1) điều tra những khó khăn mà sinh viên gặp phải trong quá trình học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành 
ô tô, Trường Đại học Sao Đỏ; (2) khám phá những kỹ thuật, hoạt động giảng dạy từ vựng chuyên ngành 
hiệu quả; và (3) điều tra hiệu quả của việc sử dụng các nhiệm vụ mô phỏng - một hoạt động giảng dạy 
mới trong việc nâng cao vốn từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành ô tô cho sinh viên. Kết quả nghiên cứu 
đã chỉ ra rằng phát âm và ghi nhớ nghĩa của từ là rào cản, khó khăn của sinh viên trong quá trình học 
từ vựng, và trong các kỹ thuật, các hoạt động được sử dụng để giảng dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên 
ngành thì các nhiệm vụ mô phỏng đã chứng tỏ hiệu quả của nó trong quá trình nâng cao vốn từ vựng 
tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên.
Từ khóa: Từ vựng; từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành; các nhiệm vụ mô phỏng; tiếng Anh ngành Công 
nghệ Kỹ thuật ô tô.
1. INTRODUCTION
The appearance of ESP as a means of 
international communication was necessary to 
satisfy the demand for learning English in the fields 
of business, education, and industry. It is difficult 
to deny Ammon & McConnell’s [1] conclusion that: 
English as a foreign language and major European 
lingua franca has now spread into most European 
countries as a language of university teaching, 
alongside the national official languages. This is 
true also of “big”/international languages (...) and 
usually coincides with languages that have played 
or are still playing an important role in scientific 
communication. According to Hutchinson & Waters 
[2], ESP is broken down into three branches: a) 
English for Science and Technology (EST), b) 
English for Business and Economics (EBE), and 
c) English for Social Studies (ESS). Each of these 
subject areas is further divided into two branches: 
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English 
for Occupational Purposes (EOP). Recently, Jin 
Jinghua [3] proposed a new trend in that Business 
English should be classified into ESP, which could 
also be divided into two types such as: EGBP 
(English for General Business Purpose) and 
ESBP (English for Specific Business Purpose), 
among which EGBP targeted to those learners 
who were lack of working experience while ESBP 
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was designed to train those professional people 
who had business working experience. 
At Sao Do University, ESP is offered to both English 
majors and non-English majors. The teachers 
would like to aim at communicative ESP lesson, 
which is still far from satisfactory due to course 
book, mixed-level students, large-sized class, low 
learner motivation and poor participation. The main 
reason that students fail to communicate smoothly 
in ESP lesson is the shortage of professional 
words. Thus, it is necessary for teachers to create 
an active and motivated learning environment to 
get students to involve in learning vocabulary. 
Among various kinds of methods and techniques, 
simulation is defined as “reality of function in 
a simulated and structured environment” [4]. 
Simulation with its characteristics and advantages 
is considered one of the most useful techniques 
that can help students enlarge their vocabulary. 
However, up to now, there has been little research 
on the application of simulation tasks in improving 
ESP vocabulary for foreign language learners.
For the above reasons, the study aims at 
investigating the difficulties encountered by 
the students at AETD, SDU when learning ESP 
vocabulary. The paper also focuses on examining 
methods and techniques that teachers at SDU 
used in teaching ESP vocabulary, investigating the 
use of simulation tasks in improving vocabulary for 
students at Automotive Engineering Technology 
Department (AETD), SDU. More specifically, the 
study tries to find out the answer for the following 
research questions:
1. What difficulties do students of AETD encounter 
during the process of acquiring vocabulary?
2. What are the methods and techniques that 
teachers at SDU employ in teaching ESP 
vocabulary?
3. How can simulation tasks improve ESP 
vocabulary for the students at AETD, SDU?
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 
2.1. Simulation 
Simulation is a kind of potential activity that shows 
much effectiveness to language p ... 4. Asking students to guess the meanings from the context
5. Using definitions or explanation in dictionaries
6. Using visual aids (pictures, charts, etc)
7. Asking students to repeat loudly
8. Asking and answering questions concerning new words
9. Asking students to do vocabulary exercises such as multiple choice, gap 
filling, matching, etc.
10. Holding vocabulary games
11. Giving feedback 
12. Giving tests to the students 
95
36
56
28
15
70
37
22
73
45
34
15
68
98
97
56
36
78
114
79
87
123
105
80
5
36
17
86
119
22
19
69
10
2
31
75
Result from the interview shows that students will 
be happy if the teachers combine textbook and 
relevant materials in ESP vocabulary lesson. It 
indicates that the current textbook does not satisfy 
students’ need. They want to enrich their ESP 
vocabulary not only from the textbook but also 
from other materials. It is also noticeable there is 
opinion to that students would like the teachers 
to create competitiveness with working in team/
group. It means that students are eager and willing 
to involve in team/ group work. To be competitive, 
the students themselves have to take part in the 
tasks actively and have high motivation. Students 
would like the teacher to check the previous 
lesson regularly so that the students are under an 
obligation to learn vocabulary. Only 4.12% of the 
sample agrees that teachers should apply rewards 
and punishment policy.
- The benefits and effectiveness of simulation 
tasks toward ESP vocabulary learning
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Table 3. The impact of simulation tasks on students’ interest and participation
Simulation tasks
Number of students
SA A SD
1. Make students interested in learning ESP words
2. Help students improve ESP vocabulary.
3. Motivate students and make ESP vocabulary more enjoyable and more fun
4. Create interaction between students
5. Lower students’ anxiety and shyness, and develop their confidence 
6. Create more chances for students to use the vocabulary creatively
7. Make learning ESP vocabulary become more communicative, less challenging and 
easier
65
72
67
47
23
23
16
72
96
89
107
124
120
108
33
2
14
16
23
27
46
(SA: strongly agree; A: agree; DA: strongly disagree)
Data in table 3 shows that simulation tasks really 
make good effect on students. Nearly all students 
agree that simulation tasks help them improve ESP 
vocabulary. It can be seen obviously that almost 
all of the students (91.76%) agree that simulation 
tasks make ESP vocabulary more enjoyable 
and more fun. Others also raise their voice that 
simulation tasks motivate students and make ESP 
terminologies become more communicative, less 
challenging and easier. Especially, 86.47% of the 
informants approve that simulation tasks lower 
their anxiety and shyness as well as develop 
their confidence. This positive result supports 
that simulation tasks integrate much in improving 
students’ ESP vocabulary. In addition to that, 
simulation tasks to some extend can create more 
chances for student to use vocabulary creatively 
(84.12%). 
5. CONCLUSION
With the aim of giving the two survey questionnaires: 
the pre-task survey questionnaire and the 
post-task survey questionnaire to the target 
population, the study has elicited the answers for 
the research questions. 
5.1. Summary of the findings and discussion
(1) The research results showed that students find 
vocabulary in English for Automotive Engineering 
difficult with many new terminologies. How to 
pronoun words correctly and how to memorize word 
meaning are the two most prominent problems they 
encounter during their learning process. These 
difficulties are caused mainly because students 
do not have a chance to practice vocabulary in the 
class and the lesson is not interesting enough to 
attract their attention. It is the teacher’s concern 
to exploit the suitable techniques and activities 
to encourage and motivate their students in 
learning vocabulary. 
(2) As can be seen from the study, the teachers 
exploit many techniques and activities in their 
English lesson. However, visual aid like pictures, 
charts and translation of listed terminologies 
into Vietnamese are frequently employed. It is 
understandable that the teachers make good use 
of the projector in each classroom in presenting 
new words. This is time saving and helps the 
teacher cover other aspects of the lesson. 
However, as mentioned above, students still do 
not have a chance to practice vocabulary in the 
class and they feel bored. That means the applied 
techniques are not good enough to motivate 
students. The study also shows that students prefer 
and take interest in more communicative activities 
like team work, group work although their learning 
habit is for passing the final exam only. Therefore, 
the teachers should revise their teaching method 
and adapt more communicative materials as well 
as employ communicative teaching techniques 
in their lesson so that students can practice their 
vocabulary more effectively.
(3) Through the results taken from the 
questionnaires, it is effective to use simulation 
tasks to improve ESP vocabulary for students. 
There are some reasons for this affirmation as 
follows: Firstly, simulation tasks have good impact 
on students’ ESP vocabulary retention. Most 
students enjoy taking part in the tasks. In other 
words, student’s ESP vocabulary competence 
is motivated by simulation tasks. Secondly, 
simulation tasks are particularly useful in practicing 
ESP vocabulary especially to particular skills. It 
has approved that ESP terminologies are surely 
less challenging and difficult and enjoyable with 
the use of simulation task. In this case, simulations 
play a role as an inspirer to appeal students 
involving in the tasks. Finally, simulation tasks 
can lower students’ anxiety and shyness, develop 
their confidence, create interaction between 
NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ HỌC
Tạp chí Nghiên cứu khoa học - Đại học Sao Đỏ, ISSN 1859-4190 Số 1(60).2018 113
students, help students negotiate the meaning. 
Therefore, simulation tasks can increase students’ 
ESP vocabulary mastery in a way that is more 
communicative as well as productive. 
In short, simulation tasks have good impact on 
student’s ESP vocabulary retention and play a role 
as an inspirer to plead student participate in the 
ESP vocabulary lessons so ESP vocabulary can 
be learnt more communicatively and productively. 
Therefore, it can be concluded that simulation 
tasks are applicable as an instrument to improve 
students’ ESP vocabulary. It is hoped that the 
study will prove worthwhile to those who want 
to enrich their students’ vocabulary and who are 
concerned about the problem
5.2. Recommendation and suggestion on 
applying simulation tasks 
In order to make the study more practical and to 
help students avoid difficulties in learning ESP 
vocabulary, some suggestions on using simulation 
tasks have also been mentioned. 
(1) To make full use of the task, the teacher 
should revise the followings before implementing 
the tasks. Firstly, teachers need to identify 
students’ characteristics such as developmental 
level, learning style and experiential background 
to estimate the language competence of the 
student. Secondly, suitable simulation tasks are 
decided and planed based on the priority aim of 
the activities such as ice-breaker, assessment, 
etc. Thirdly, it is necessary for the teacher to 
selecting language functions, vocabulary, and 
grammar structure that students practice through 
simulation tasks. Next, examining the mechanics 
of the simulation tasks such as time, number of 
participants, the classroom setting should be 
paid attention to. Then, the teachers illustrate the 
tasks as clearly as possible and assure that all 
the students understand what they have to do to 
perform the tasks. Finally, evaluating, discussing 
and giving feedback to students’ performance 
should be taken into consideration.
(2) Besides conducting the tasks, teachers should 
provide students appropriate vocabulary learning 
strategies to let them self-study. The combination 
of proper teaching method and suitable studying 
method will gain better results.
5.3. Limitations of the study and 
recommendations for further study
The set objectives of the study at the beginning 
have been achieved; however, it cannot avoid 
some limitations. Because of the shortage of time, 
limit of knowledge and the scope of the study, it 
only investigated the current situation of using 
simulation tasks in some classes in AETD, at SDU. 
Three weeks were not quite sufficient for a pilot 
teaching to produce a persuasive result. Perhaps, 
if the time budget could be lengthened, the 
outcomes of subjects would be more convincing. 
What is more, the number of students in each 
class is too large for an English class. If the class 
size was smaller, the result of the study would be 
more accurate. In addition, the respondents of the 
study were limited to students of AETD, so their 
opinions about using simulation tasks could not 
be considered as representative of all students 
learning English as a foreign language in general 
and all non-major students at SDU in particular. 
Basing on the findings as well as the limitation of 
the study, some recommendation has made for 
further study. First of all, further research should 
be carried out with longer pilot teaching period 
which should be extending in about fifteen weeks. 
Secondly, sample size and the context should be 
larger. As mentioned above, the subjects of the 
study are the students of AETD only, therefore, 
study should be conducted on all the students at 
SDU or on students at other universities. Finally, 
to get more accurate result, further research 
should be conducted on smaller class size. The 
number of students in each class should be about 
twenty-five.
Appendix: Survey questionnaire
The pre - task survey questionnaire
1. What do you think the vocabulary in the course 
book “English for Automotive Engineering” 
difficult?
2. What do you think it make an ESP word difficult 
to learn?
3. What do you think of the role of vocabulary in 
learning ESP?
4. What is your purpose of learning vocabulary in 
English for Automotive Engineering?
5. What is the amount of vocabulary in course 
book “English for Automotive Engineering?
6. How do you evaluate the vocabulary in your 
course book?
7. What difficulties do you encounter when learning 
ESP vocabulary? 
8. What factors often cause(s) the difficulties when 
you learn vocabulary? 
9. What techniques/activities does your teacher 
use to present new words?
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10. What techniques/activities of practicing new 
words do you like most?
11. What techniques/activities of consolidating 
vocabulary are effective in your class?
The post-task survey questionnaire
1. Do you like simulation tasks given by your 
teacher during ESP lessons?
2. What do you do while taking the tasks?
3. How do you feel when taking tasks? 
4. Do you practice the learned ESP vocabulary in 
simulation tasks?
5. How do you think simulation tasks improve your 
ESP vocabulary?
6. What are the benefits of simulation tasks in your 
ESP learning?
7. To make use of simulation tasks in improving 
ESP vocabulary, what do you think the teacher 
should do? 
8. How often do you want to involve in simulation tasks?
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