Content-Based Instruction in the Teaching of English for Accounting at Vietnamese College of Finance and Customs

Abstract

The overwhelming weight of emphasis in language analysis in the teaching of English for Accounting (ESP) has been a concern for teachers of English at the College of Finance and Customs (CFC). In the ESP course, the teaching materials teach students to recognize the surface form by means of the specialist texts. The difficulties the students and teachers encounter are the unfamiliarity with the specialist contents and far too complex sentence structures. Faced with this reality, the researcher produced a syllabus which gave high priority to the language form and content via simplified language and authentic materials. To do this, firstly the researcher incorporated the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) approach in the ESP context, and then the ESP material designed in the CBI approach was used in the treatment group in one semester. To see its effects when the course finished, the researcher administered a survey including the post test and the questionnaire. The findings from this research reveal the students’ interest, and involvement in the course. Also, they highlight the students’ ability to get better scores in all modes of ESP.