Curriculum Development of English for Business: National University of Laos

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Curriculum Development of English for Business:

National University of Laos1

Xayapheth Chaphichith

[email protected]

National University of Laos

and

Hirakawa Yukiko

[email protected]

Hiroshima University

Abstract

This study is aiming at measuring student achievement and clarifying their problems

in English for Business in the Department of English, Faculty of Letters, National

University of Laos. A researcher-made-test was applied to 332 final year (Year 5)

students. The test was in multiple choice format and the questions were based on the

textbooks used in English for Economics and English for Business taught in Year 3

and Year 4 respectively. It was found that overall achievement of the test was quite

unsatisfactory. The rate of right answer was 54.1%. By analyzing the mistakes, three

major problems were found: First, the final year students still had problems in basic

English. For example in reading, they made mistakes not because the texts were

concerned to business, but because they did not know sentence patterns and basic

vocabulary. Second, maybe because the students were weak in English but the

textbooks were written in English, and all explanation was given in English, students

could not acquire the content they had been taught. Present teaching of English for

Economics and English of Business was not productive. Third, students did not know

the very basic terms and concepts of business. For example only 23.8% of the

students could choose the right definition of “an economy” in Lao, while 34.9%

chose “small and medium enterprises” as the right answer. The result strongly

suggested that the actual teaching of English for Business should be totally revised.

Key Words: Curriculum development, English for Business, business content

1. Research aim and background

The Department of English is one of the departments in the Faculty of Letters, National

University of Laos (NUOL). It consists of two courses: Normal Course (NC) and Special Course

(SC). It is assigned to provide the society with English professionals in the field of business,

administration and international cooperation. In order to achieve this goal, the curriculum of the

department contains four credits of English for Business in Year 3, six credits of English for

1 Cited as: Chaphichith, X. (2008). Curriculum development of English for Business in the Department of English,

Faculty of Letters, National University of Laos. Paper presented at the Asia TEFL Conference in Bali, Indonesia

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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Economics in Year 4, and six credits of English for Management and three credits of English for

Correspondence in Year 5 in NC. Equivalent subjects are also provided in SC. The teaching

period of these subjects is 20 to 30% of all teaching periods in Year 3 to 5.

The actual curriculum was introduced in 1996 in the Normal Course and in 2001 in the

Special Course, but had not been evaluated systematically, until Keomany (a researcher in the

Department of English) conducted a research on the achievement of the entrants in 2004, and

that of Year 1 students at the end of the academic year in 2005. He found out that the skills of the

entrants in basic grammar and vocabulary were low, and they did not make any progress after

one year of the study (Keomany, 2006). Soulignavong (2007) tested student achievement in the

Year 3, 4 and 5 and revealed that the achievement stayed in a considerably low level. She also

found through interview that the employers of the graduates were not satisfied with their English

competence in work places.

As there was a big gap between the needs of society and the actual achievement of

graduates, it is urgently needed to revise the curriculum and to educate students to be competent

professionals of English in their working places.

This research aims at measuring student achievement and clarifying their problems in

English for Business in the Department of English, Faculty of Letters, National University of

Laos. The result will be the basic information for improving curriculum in the department.

2. Actual curriculum in the Department of English

Though Johns and Price-Machado (2001) define that English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

is the whole curriculum designed to meet the needs of the target students and the society, in the

Department of English, ESP is recognized as a name of some subjects. On the basis of various

subjects of general English in Year 1 and Year 2, English for Business (one period a week, four

credits) is introduced in Year 3, English for Economics (two periods a week, six credits) is taught

in Year 4, and English for Management (two periods a week, six credits) and English for

Correspondence (two periods a week, three credits, in the first semester) are taught in Year 5

(final year). One period (90 minutes) per week is allocated in Year 3 and two periods per week in

Year 4 and 5. The researchers would like to call these subjects as English for Business.

The textbooks used in English for Business are compiled textbooks from developed in

English speaking countries and based the idea of ESP that the whole curriculum should be

designed to meet some specific needs. As the result, in Year 3, they learn “Good morning. My

name’s John Smith.” again, though they have learned “Hello, my name’s Paula” in Year 1. This

textbook the department use for Year 3 students is actually the textbook for the English

beginners to be used in Year 1. This is the same with other textbooks: they teach general English

using context of business. As a result, although the course description of the department says that

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English for Business in Year 3 is intended to develop students’ knowledge in basic economics in

English and to build up basic business knowledge and skills that are essential in doing business,

the content of the textbook is far behind the expectation.

3. Research questions

To seek ideas for proposing curriculum development of English for Business, two

questions are asked:

1. What is the actual level of students’ achievement of English for Business?

2. What are the current problems influencing the English for Business achievement of

English gradates?

4. Methodology

4.1 Sampling

The participants were final year students in the department who had studied in NC and

SC. SC consists of two sessions, evening (SE) and afternoon (SA). The number of participants

and attendance rate is shown in Table 1.

Table 1: The number of participants and attendance rate by course

Courses Total Absent Present Participation rate (%)

NC 102 16 86 84.3%

SA 163 43 120 73.6%

SE 198 72 126 63.6%

Total 463 131 332 71.7%

Overall, the rate of participation was low. This reflected the average rate of absence every

day. The rate of the absence of about 30% was proved to be common in other tests and most

students take leave randomly (Hirakawa, 2006).

4.2 Test

The test was developed by the researchers based on the textbooks of “English for

Business” used in the year 3 and “English for Economics” in the year4. The test was divided into

three parts: business vocabulary part (35 items), reading comprehension part (10 items) and

business correspondence part (10 items). The total number of the items was 55.

4.2.1 Business Vocabulary

Vocabulary part consisted of 3 subparts; direct translation, definition of business words

and words in context. All the questions were multiple choice format with four choices. Direct

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translation was designed to check whether students know the equivalent word of English words

in L1 (Lao). Definition of business words was designed to check whether students know the

concepts of business words in L1. This part was added because sometimes even through students

knew direct translation in L1, they might not understand the meaning of the words. The last

subpart was Business vocabulary in sentence context. It was designed to measure whether

students comprehend a business word in a business sentence context. Most of the words were

selected from the textbooks used in year 3 and 4.

4.2.2 Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension consisted of two subparts; five questions with two choices (true

or false) and five questions with four choices. The both texts were taken with small modification

from the textbook used in year 4. This part intended to check not only reading comprehension

skills, but also how much students comprehended the text they had studied in English for

Business. The texts were not difficult from the viewpoints of length, sentence structure and

vocabulary but students were required to read the whole text carefully to answer the questions.

4.2.3 Business correspondence

In this part, there were two subparts; six items of fax rearrangement and four items of

inferring formal expression in business letters. The fax arrangement part was taken from the

textbook used in year 4. This part intended to check not only how well students organize

disordered sentences into a complete fax, but also how much students memorized the content of

the textbook. The last subpart of inferring formal expressions was selected from A Dictionary of

English Business Letter Expressions (Takubo & Hashimoto, 1995). The questions of this part

were multiple choice format with four choices. The sentences were grammatically complicated,

but often used in the context of business letters. Students had to choose the essential meaning of

the sentences in L1.

5. Results

5.1 Overall results of the test

The table 2 shows overall achievement of the test by parts. Cronbach alpha of the test

was 0.84, which meant that the test was highly reliable.

The average percentage of each part was low, considering that the test was multiple

choice format and most of the items of the test were taken from the textbooks that students had

studied.

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Table 2: Overall achievement by part of the test

Parts of the test Mean score R(%) Std. Dev. Full score

Business vocabulary 21.4 61.1% 5.8 35

Reading comprehension 4.7 46.7% 1.8 10

Business correspondence 3.7 36.8% 2.4 10

Total 29.8 54.2% 8.1 55 R=Rate of right answer

5.2 Results of business vocabulary

5.2.1 Direct translation

There were 15 items in the direct translation part. Students were asked to choose the

equivalent word of the English word in L1. The result is shown in the table 3. Most words are in

General Service Word List (West, 1953) or Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000), as indicated

in the table. Occurrence is the times the word appeared in the textbook of English for Business in

year 3 and 4.

Table 3: Rate of right answer in direct translation questions

Item. No Vocabulary Frequency Occurrence R(%)

4 employee GSL914 32 92.5

2 competitor GSL2041 10 90.4

5 export 1AWL 8 87.3

1 branch GSL1210 12 86.4

13 profit GSL1327 5 86.1

14 capital GSL866 - 82.5

3 maintenance 2AWL 2 80.1

15 turnover - 19 78.9

11 cost GSL264 14 72.6

6 subsidiary 13 69.6

10 exhibition 8AWL 3 61.7

9 discount - 3 59.0

7 conference 4AWL 32 54.5

8 strategy 2AWL - 49.7

12 bankrupt - - 41.0

Average 72.8 R=Rate of right answer

GSL=The rank in the General Service Word List (West, 1953),

AWL=The first sublist of academic word list (Coxhead, 2000)

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The average rate of right answer was 72.8%. It was found that the recognition of each

word did not depend on the occurrences of the word in the textbooks. For example, the word

“conference” occurred 32 times, but the rate of right answer was low. This strongly suggested

that students learned the meaning of words vaguely. The table 4 shows that many students could

not distinguish “conference” from “seminar” or “presentation”. It should be emphasized that in

L1, “seminar” is used in different meaning from “conference.

Table 4: Errors in direct translation of “conference”

Q7. conference (a) seminar (b) presentation (c) report (d)* conference (n)

Rate of answer 17.8% 16.3% 10.5% 54.5% 0.9

* Right answer, (n)=No answer

In the teaching in the department, it is considered that translating an English word into

Lao is not good for students. Also, students are encouraged to guess the meaning of the unknown

words rather than to use dictionary. This can be the reasons why students did not learn correct

meaning of the words in the textbooks.

5.2.2 Definition of business words in L1

In this part, the researchers intended to check whether students knew basic terms and

concepts in business. The answer choices were in Lao, so that English skills would not interfere

Table 5: Rate of right answer in definition of business vocabulary

Item. No Vocabulary Frequency Occurrence R(%)

17 an advertisement GSL1147 5 75.0

30 an experience GSL276 15 74.4

20 a bonus - - 73.8

21 a brand - 3 72.0

27 a salesperson - 1 69.0

28 quality GSL683 13 61.7

18 an auditor - - 53.3

19 a fringe benefit 1AWL - 53.3

26 inflation - 3 52.4

22 cash - - 52.1

25 a guarantee - 1 44.9

16 an account GSL607 4 40.4

23 a curriculum vitae - - 39.2

29 a shipment - - 30.1

24 an economy 1AWL - 23.8

Average 54.4

R=Rate of right answer



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the answer.

The rates of right answer is in table 5.

Overall, the student achievement was low, and lower than the part of direct translation.

One of the reasons could be the words in this part had lower frequency and occurrence than those

in the part of direct translation. Another possible reason was that the students knew Lao

translation, but did not know the concept of the words.

Surprisingly, the word “an economy”, which appears as a name of the subject “English

for Economics” and is a common word in the society, had the rate of right answer of 23.8% as

shown in Table 6. The typical mistake was (a) a small medium enterprise (SME) (34.9%), (c)

business administration was also supported by 25.9%. The result was really striking. If so many

students misunderstood its meaning as SME or business administration, it would be certain that

they misunderstood many of the contents of the textbooks.

Table 6: Errors in definition of “an economy”

Q. 24 An economy is …………………

(a) a small medium enterprise

(b) a country’s finances, trade, industry.

(c) business administration.

(d) investment.

Answer choice (a) (b*) (c) (d) No answer

Rate of answer 34.9% 23.8% 25.9% 14.5% 0.9% *Right answer

It was strongly suggested that students could not acquire basic terms and concepts in

business under the present curriculum.

As suggested in many previous tests and this test, students have difficulty in English even

in the final year. In the present curriculum, all contents of English for Business are expected to

be taught in English. Malicious cycle is probably occurring: because they do not understand

English, they cannot catch the basic concepts, and because they do not know the concepts, they

cannot understand English.

5.2.3 Business vocabulary in sentence context

This part consists of five items. Students were asked to choose the appropriate English

word for its context.

The rate of right answer in this part is shown in Table 7.

The table shows that the rate of right answer was the lowest rate of right answer. The

average rate of right answer was 46.3%.

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Table 7: The rate of right answer by item

Item. No Vocabulary Frequency Occurrence R%

31 cancel - 16 66.3

33 attended GSL 862 3 60.5

34 commerce GSL1313 1 42.2

32 postpone - 9 35.5

35 commodity 8AWL - 26.8

Average 46.3

R=Rate of right answer



Students made mistakes because they had difficulty in understanding the meaning of the

whole sentence. Table 8 shows an example.

Table 8: Errors in word in context “postpone”

Q. 32. We can ………………….. the meeting until next week if necessary.

(a) open (b) cancel (c) postpone (d) commence

Answer choice (a) (b) (c*) (d) No answer

Rate of answer 49.1% 5.4% 35.5% 9.6% 0.3%

*Right answer

The rate of right answer was 35.5%, while 49.1% of the students chose “open”. Payne

(2006) says that a skilled speaker can combine words into large structure. In this case, many

students could not combine “until next week” into the whole sentence. This is an error coming

from lack of basic grammatical competency.

5.3 Reading comprehension

5.3.1 Text one

The reading text one was chosen from the textbook used in year 4 and slightly modified

by the researchers. The text was taken from the unit that students had already studied. As shown

below, the text is very short and consists of simple sentences and easy vocabulary.

Text one:

One newspaper reported that we have sacked or fired four workers in Vientiane for misconduct. That was untrue.

We have not dismissed any workers this year. We have made 26 staff redundant in Vientiane but we have taken on

20 new employees in Pakse. We have also recruited 10 school leavers on the government’s training scheme.

Table 9: The rate of right answer in percent

Questions Q38 Q36 Q40 Q37 Q39 Average

Rate of right answer 39.2% 52.1% 70.5% 70.8% 88.0% 64.1%

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The overall achievement of this part was 64.1%. This is strikingly low considering that

this is true/false question and students could reach the right answer with the probability of 50%.

The highest rate of right answer was Q 39 (88.0%). This was because they could find the

answer by skimming and scanning, without reading the whole text. However, in the following

question in table 10, students applied the same technique and reached to the wrong answer.

Table 10: Error in reading comprehension 1

Q 38. They fired four workers in Vientiane for misconduct. true false

Answer choices (t) (f*) No answer

Rate of answer 59.6% 39.2% 1.2%

The rate of right answer was 39.2%. It seemed that students did not read “That was

untrue.” in the text.

It was suggested that students lacked basic reading skills and overused skimming and

scanning techniques.

Also as this passage was taken from the textbook they had learned, it was made clear that

they could not memorize the text. The textbooks of English for Business should be too difficult

for students to understand.

5.3.2 Text two

Reading text two was chosen from the textbook in year 4. This text was about three

times longer than the text one, but sentence structure and vocabulary level were about the same.

It was a success story of Coca-Cola, but only few special terms in business were used and no

specific knowledge of business was required.

A part of text two:

.................................................................................................................................................. ...............................

Dr. John Styth Pemberton made it in his backyard, took it to his local pharmacy, and they put it on sale at 5 cents a

glass. Hand-painted signs saying “Coca-Cola” appeared outside the store and inside signs invited customers to

“drink”. But sales didn’t take off. In the first year they averaged just 9 drinks a day.

There were five questions. The questions were multiple choice format with four choices.


Questions Q42 Q44 Q45 Q43 Q41 Average

Rate of right answer 24.1% 26.5% 27.4% 31.9% 37.0% 29.4%

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Overall, the rate of right answer was very low. The average rate of right answer was

29.4%.

Some of the result, as introduced in the table 11, suggested that students had problem in

the basic concepts in business. In the previous question in definition of “an advertisement”,

75.0% of the students chose the right answer. However, in the question below, chose (d): “He

advertised it by 5 cents a glass”. It is strongly suggested that students confused “advertise” with

“sell” or “promote”. This was another example of vague understanding of basic terms and

concepts, which would cause trouble in business transaction.

Table 12. Error in reading comprehension 2

Q 42. How did Dr. Pemberton advertise “Coca-Cola”?

(a) by using customers.

(b) by using signs.

(c) by inviting customers.

(d) by 5 cents a glass.

Answer choices (a) (b*) (c) (d) No answer

Rate of answer 12.3% 24.1% 29.2% 31.9% 2.4%

*Right answer

5.4 Business correspondence

5.4.1 Disordering a business fax

This text was also chosen from the textbook in year 4 with small modification. In the

textbook, the text was in the right order, but the instruction emphasized to be careful about the

style.

The complete fax

e.g..a……. Dear Professor Somphone,

Q48………. Thank you for your fax of 1 June. I will be arriving on Flight no. JL 401

at International Wattai Airport on 16th June.

Q51………. Could you book hotel accommodation for three nights in the city centre?

Q50………. Also, I would be grateful if you could arrange a meeting with Lao Brewery

Company for me on June 17th

if possible.

Q46………. Look forward to seeing you on the 16th

.

Q47………. Kind regards,

Q49………. From Manisone.

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Questions Q51 Q50 Q46 Q47 Q49 Q48 Average

Rate of right answer 27.4% 31.9% 36.1% 43.1% 47.6% 51.5% 39.6%

Overall, the rate of the right answer was 39.6%.

It was striking that many students could not close the business letter properly; Q 46. Look

forward to seeing you on the 16th

, Q 47. Kind regards, and Q 49. From Manisone. The rates of

right answer were 36.1%, 43.1% and 47.6% respectively. This is the common style in any kind

of letters.

Again, it was made clear that students did not acquire what was taught in textbooks.

5.4.2 Formal expression of business letter

In this subpart, students were asked to choose the essential meaning of formal business

letter expressions in English. The texts were taken from Takubo & Hashimoto (1995). This part

should be difficult because students had never learned these formal expressions before.


Questions Q54 Q53 Q52 Q55 Average

Rate of right answer 23.2% 29.8% 34.3% 43.1% 32.6%

The rate of right answer was 32.6%. Most students had difficulties in understanding the

essence of business letters.

It was strongly suspected that students did not understand the meaning of “essence”,

though the instruction was given in Lao. For example, in the question introduced in table 13,

many students (32.2%) chose (c) “I am writing to inform you something serious.” as the right

answer. In business transaction, the essence should be the content of “something serious”. It was

clear that (c) did not include any essence. From this point of view, (d) was also insufficient as an

essence of a business letter. However, the majority of the students chose these two answers.

Table 13: Error in Formal expression of business letter

Q 54. I am writing to inform you that an unexpected change in events will prevent me from

visiting Vientiane this month as previously palled.

(a) I will inform you again when everything will be fine.

(b) I cannot go to Vientiane this month.

(c) I am writing to inform you something serious.

(d) Unexpected change in events happened to me.

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Answer choice (a) (b*) (c) (d) (n)

Rate of answer 18.1% 23.2% 32.2% 24.1% 2.4%

These students were considered to lack basic skills in business.

6. Conclusion

The overall achievement of the test showed that students’ English skills were far from

sufficient to work in the real society.

The problems of English in Business could be classified into three:

First, the final year students still had problems in English itself. For example in reading,

they made mistakes not because the texts were concerned to business, but simply because they

did not know sentence patterns and basic vocabulary. Also, they used too much skimming

scanning techniques and did not read. In vocabulary, they did not know many words in GSL, and

in word in context, many students could not connect words with the whole sentence structure.

These are pure English problem, not special in English in Business. Not only English in Business,

but the whole curriculum should be mobilized to solve the problem.

Second, students could not acquire the content they had been taught. The reading texts

and a fax letter were taken from the textbook they had learned in year 4, but the rate of right

answer was poor. Many students could not acquire the way how to close a letter. Maybe this is

because the students are weak in English, but the textbooks are written in English, and all

explanation given by teachers is in English. Present teaching of English for Business was proved

to be unproductive. It is necessary to revise the curriculum, textbooks and teaching method from

the beginning, so that the intended curriculum will be surely acquired.

Third, many students did not know the basic terms and concepts of business, and lacked

skills in business. For example only 23.8% of the students could choose the right definition of

“economy” in Lao, while 34.9% chose “small and medium enterprises” as the right answer. In

reading, 31.9% of the students chose the answer that meant “He advertized Coca-Cola by 5 cents

a glass.” These students seemed to confuse “advertize” with “sell” or “promote”. In questions of

detecting the essence of business letters, 32.2% of students answered “I am writing to inform you

something serious.” When asked to tell the essence of a letter, these students will report their

future bosses “It is written that there is something serious.” This is a clear lack of business skill,

because surely the boss wants to know what something serious is. To solve this kind of problem,

teaching in English seems to have clear limitation, especially considering students’ English skills.

The contents concerning directly to business should be taught in Lao. Those who have clear

concepts and good skills in their L1 can master English for Business easier. If they cannot work

in business in L1, it is impossible to do it in English. Teaching the content of business in Lao

will be much more effective.

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7. Further study of Curriculum Development of English for Business

Based on the above findings, the researchers organized the seminar on the staff of the

department to share the results, to discuss the solution and to make consensus, in May 2008.

Twenty eight staff including the head of the department attended the seminar.

Finally, the consensus was made in following items:

(1) It is better to teach General English and English for Business together, step by step. (96%

strongly agreed or agreed.)

(2) Content of business should be taught in Lao because students’ English skills are not

sufficient. (68%)

(3) Content of business should be taught in Lao in early grades. (68%)

(4) Sentence structure should be clearly taught and explained in General English.(96%)

(5) Confusing business words should be explained and defined clearly. (89%)

Based on the above policies, the department is now starting to improve the curriculum,

and develop and revise necessary textbooks.

The government and the society of Laos are expecting the Department of English to

provide them with competent human resources who can work in English in their working places.

As the result of this study shows, the goal is still distant. However, the department will try its

best to carry out its responsibility.

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Curriculum Development of English for Business: National University of Laos

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