There are increasing needs for trained business persons as a result of the recent rapid development of foreign trade in Vietnam. A good command of written commercial English is one of the most important qualifications of a business person. At present the Hanoi Foreign Trade College is the only institution which is responsible for training commerce students. The teaching of writing skill in general and the teaching of commercial letter writing in particular still leave much to be desired. The writing skill of graduates of the Hanoi Foreign Trade College is far from satisfactory This Field Study Report aims at identifying the difficulties and the needs of commerce students in the Hanoi Foreign Trade College. It takes into consideration the language and learning needs of the target students in order to suggest a syllabus for the teaching of commercial letter writing to commerce students more efficiently. The Field Study Report consists of seven chapters. Chapter I provides an analysis of the teaching and learning situations at the Hanoi Foreign Trade College and problems of the teaching of commercial letter writing. Chapter 2 looks at some major theoretical problems and practical issues for Specific Purpose English syllabus design and material production for the teaching of commercial letter writing to commerce students at the Hanoi Foreign Trade College. Chapter 3 is a contrastive analysis of western commercial letters, Vietnamese commercial letters in Vietnamese and Vietnamese commercial letters in English. Chapter 4 is an analysis of the results of a survey made in 1988 to identify the needs of commerce students for commercial letters. Chapter 5 is mainly concerned with designing a communicative syllabus for the teaching of commercial letter writing to commerce students in Vietnam. Chapter 6 is the proposed syllabus for the teaching of CLW to commerce students at the HFTC, Vietnam. Chapter 7 is the conclusion. This Field Study Report should be regarded as an exploratory attempt to adopt the communicative approach in designing a syllabus for the teaching of commercial letter writing to commerce students in Vietnam.

This study, within the framework of improving the English course for postgraduate level at IPB (Bogor Institute of Agriculture), attempts to determine the extent of English reading activities for academic purposes expected by agricultural teaching staff at post graduate level, different expectations across the study programs or a particular area of specialised discipline, the extent of English problems experienced by postgraduate students and the strategies used to cope with English needs in their postgraduate studies, to test a hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between the students' command/scores of English and their achievements/scores in agricultural subjects. Questionnaires for agricultural staff and students were adapted from Hughes (1988) and Weir (1988) to address these questions. Students' academic records were obtained to compute the correlation between scores in English and agricultural subjects. Review of literature and research in current theories of reading in EFL is given to serve as a theoretical foundation to discuss English reading lessons from secondary level to tertiary level in Indonesia and to provide general implications to improve the English course at IPB. The results indicate that staff reading expectation in English is high in comparison to the students' level of English and in that all eight types of reading activities listed in the questionnaires were expected. There are some different expectations across the study programs. However, the most relevant finding to note in regard to the the English course is that reading English texts as review of literature for research proposes and reading English texts for writing assignments were expected across all the study programs. It is also found that reading English texts for academic purposes was still a problem for the majority of student respondents and there are various interesting reading strategies used by the student to cope with the English needs of their studies. However, further investigation is essential to assist the students with reading problems since the results do not specify the nature of reading problems and methods used by the respondents. A significant correlation is found between scores in English and agricultural subjects at the level of 5% and 1% by the Spearman rank- order and the Pearson product-moment correlation formulas. This implies that English is central to the students' success in their postgraduate studies, which is also supported by the student respondents' opinions. General implications and suggestions are provided to assist postgraduate with reading problems and to improve the English course for the students.

This study deals with reading problems faced by the advanced level students in the Institute of International Relations (I.I.R.) in Hanoi. It seeks to identify ways in which the teachers there can help their students to read authentic texts in English with a high level of comprehension. The study begins with a description of the training of the young diplomats and researchers. It considers the problems faced by the teachers and students, and looks into the role of English in general and English reading comprehension in particular in the I.I.R. Bearing in mind the objectives of the training, the study discusses the goals for teaching reading comprehension at an advanced level and lays emphasis on the importance of using appropriate techniques for teaching reading skills at this level. The writer of the study also looks at the relevant issues in theories of reading comprehension which are discussed in current literature. These theoretical issues are then related to the reality of teaching in the I.I.R. Finally, to illustrate all the techniques and skills for teaching reading comprehension which have been dealt with earlier in the study, the writer presents a sample reading lesson. It is his hope that the presentation, and indeed the whole study, will be of value to his colleagues at the I.I.R., and to others who teach reading in similar situations.

The communicative approach is one of the most characteristic features of contemporary language teaching. This paper aims to study ways of achieving communicative competence of students by using informal language practice and games in teaching. It attempts to look more closely at the relationship between language acquisition, language games and communicative language teaching. This study is based on the theory that language games and informal language practice allow natural learning to occur and provide opportunities for developing communicative competence in a foreign language. While games and informal language practice are widely used in language classrooms in many countries, it appears from the writer's observation and experience of teaching English in China that there is still, among Chinese teachers and students, a great deal of suspicion and uncertainty about the functions and the effectiveness of such classroom activities. Problems detected in language classrooms in using these activities and games suggest that Chinese teachers and students have misunderstood and misused these activities. In this study, it is hoped to analyze in some depth the problems involved in using language games in China, including the attitudes, teaching methods and expectations of the teachers and students. Also, it is hoped to investigate the optimal use of games and practice in Chinese classrooms. As the use of games has received little serious attention in China to date, it is hoped, finally, to suggest ways of using games effectively to improve learners' communicative ability.

This study sets out to analyse the teaching skills of an effective Australian teacher of French in a primary school in Canberra. Chapter One provides an overview of the primary education in Singapore with particular emphasis on the language policies. The purpose and scope of the study and the approach used in carrying out the study are also described in this chapter. Chapters Two to Six present descriptive features of the teacher's teaching approach. Clarity in her goals and instructions to her Year 3 and Year 5 classes were analysed through extracts of the classroom discourse. The way the teacher provided encouragement and feedback on errors to her Year 3 class were also described. The variation in the pace of her speech in relation to the activities and the adjustments made when she posed questions according to the language proficiency of the pupils, also form part of the data analysed. In Chapter Eight, conclusions were made of the possibility of transferring the teaching approaches to the teaching of English as a second language in primary schools in Singapore by comparing the French program described in Chapter Seven with the primary education system in Singapore. The study concludes with an overview of the areas that need further research and study.

The process of second language vocabulary acquisition (L2VA) is investigated by looking at the learning, teaching, learner and environmental factors that affect the ways that adult Vietnamese learners of English acquire, store and use words. Data were collected by examination of informants' diaries, recorded classes, free conversations, interview-questionnaires and regular interviews during the English program. The data show that the process of building up the mental lexicon is slow, long and complicated. For adult learners coming from different English and job backgrounds, full time classroom learning is the biggest and most important source of L2 word input. It is also in this environment that the word storage and recall mechanisms are most facilitated. The L2VA process varies according to individual learners at different levels, with different learning goals, motivations, determination, areas of interest and word learning methods. It is hoped that the findings of the study help increase Vietnamese teachers' awareness of how to teach English vocabulary effectively and how to help learners work out individually suitable word learning methods.

This study attempts to investigate the teaching of written English in Vietnam with special attention to the main problems encountered by teachers of English at the main language institutions in the light of the literature and practices in general ELT. The first chapter is the introduction of the study. It covers the aim and scope to be achieved in the study, and explains the sources of data to be used for the study. Terminology of some phrases and abbreviations for convenient use are also given. Chapter 2 focuses on general ELT developments. Major trends in ELT and their practices are brought into discussion. Then in the light of the literature in ELT, the teaching of writing is taken into consideration. Being an important component in ELT, the teaching of writing has to satisfy this need of learners - the need for effective communication - without overlooking correctness, accuracy and other features of good writing. However, there is no single approach that can provide a perfect answer to all the learners' problems. Chapter 3 discusses the teaching and learning situation in Vietnam in three stages from 1959 to 1986. It is made clear that the situation is not satisfactory due to the methods, techniques, materials and the quality of teachers. Then special investigation is made into the writing area. It is discovered that complex writing is avoided because of the teachers' low standard and their methods and techniques in teaching written English. Improvement courses have been held, but they did not include writing programmes for teachers. Chapter 4 analyses the main problems affecting the teaching of writing in Vietnam, such as teachers' unawareness of language appropriateness and correctness, their difficulty at discourse level and lack of cultural knowledge. Teachers' misconceptions about errors and lack of methods and techniques in dealing with errors also result in ineffective teaching. In Chapter 5 some recommendations are made for teaching writing to inservice teachers in the upgrading course. They focus on the methods and techniques to be used in such a writing course. Some techniques for composition correction are also suggested. Unfortunately, there is no single book that is ideal for such a course. A selection of current writing coursebooks is given in the hope that teachers will find material to suit the needs of their students in them. The last recommendations are for teaching academic writing which involves more sophisticated skills than writing on general topics. Finally the writer makes some comments on her own work and suggests further research into the writing area.

This study is mainly concerned with the common errors Vietnamese adult students make in learning English as a second/foreign language. Using the tools of contrastive analysis and error analysis, the researcher decribes and examines certain areas of similarity and difference between English and Vietnamese on some grammatical aspects, and then analyses the errors made by the Vietnamese students in two different learning contexts and at different levels of proficiency. This studies consists of six chapters : Chapter 1 introduces the position of English in Vietnam at present, raises the problems encountered in the teaching and learning of English in Vietnam, and states why this study is necessary. Chapter 2 is the summary of the main theories of second language acquisition and some of the principal studies of Vietnamese grammar. Chapter 3 discusses the techniques of contrastive analysis and error analysis, which provide bases for the comparative study in Chapter 4 and the error analysis in Chapter 5. In Chapter 4, a contrastive study is undertaken of eleven aspects of English and Vietnamese grammar, which serves as the basis for the discussion in Chapter 5. Chapter 5 presents an analysis of the common errors Vietnamese students make in two different learning contexts in Vietnam and in Australia. It also discusses the various strategies the students use in order to achieve language proficiency. Finally, some conclusions concerning the attitude towards, and the treatment of, errors are mentioned in Chapter 6. It also provides suggestions for further study in the subject area.

本研究旨在探討臺灣的大學生連接詞的理解與使用。除比較大學生對「句內」及「句間」連接詞的使用外，所閱讀文章內容的熟悉與否是否影響其使用連接詞，以及英文能力與連接詞使用能力之間的相關性，也是本研究的重點所在。 　　一百三十五位國立臺灣工業技術學院大一學生參與此研究。其測驗結果顯示：（一）英文能力愈強者，使用連接詞的能力也愈強；（二）「句間」連接詞比「句內」連接詞較難理解使用；（三）對文章內容的熟悉並未顯著幫助受試者選用正確連接詞。 / The present study was designed to investigate college-level Chinese students' use of English conjunctions at the intra- and inter-sentential levels, the interaction of content familiarity and use of conjunctions, and the relationship between English proficiency and ability to use conjunctions. It aimed at understanding their weakness in using conjunctions and in comprehending expository texts, and thus providing some pedagogical implications for teaching English conjunctions and reading comprehension. 　　One hundred and thirty-five freshmen at National Taiwan Institute of Technology participated in the present study. One hundred and three of them were engineering majors and thirty-two of them were business majors. They were given a simulated TOEFL test and a conjunction test. The conjunction test was composed of a sentence-completion test, which was designed to test subjects' ability to use conjunctions within sentences (intrasentential), and a three-passage rational multiple-choice cloze, which was designed to measure subjects' ability to use conjunctions in extended discourses (intersentential) and the interaction of content familiarity and the ability to use conjunctions. 　　The results showed that (1) college-level Chinese students were more competent in using English conjunctions at the intrasentential level than at the intersentential level, (2) most of the subjects did not seem to comprehend logical development better and thus did not use conjunctions more accurately in content-familiar texts than in content unfamiliar texts, and (3) subjects with higher level of English proficiency exhibited greater ability in using conjunctions both intrasententially and intersententially.

This study aims to discuss equivalence and non-equivalence in some selected areas of English and Chinese lexis and their impact upon teaching, learning and translating. Attempts have been made to state the causes of lexical equivalence and non-equivalence and raise and solve some difficulties and problems arising particularly from nonequivalent lexemes between English and Chinese. As a subdiscipline of linguistics, contrastive linguistics is concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine the differences and similarities between them. Based on a practical aim this study tries to provide a model for the comparison and determine how and which lexemes are comparable so as to explore the notion of equivalence and non-equivalence. It is hoped to provide as much information as is possible in a limited study of this kind on lexical comparison between the two languages. It compares differences with examples, analyses some of the problems arising from the errors made by the Chinese students, and analyses their causes in the areas of noun, verb, preposition, compound lexemes, reduplicative words and phrases, negation, polysemy, idiomatic expressions and lexemes derived directly from the cultural background. Finally some suggestions and considerations are made for those who might have responsibility for designing courses to train interpreters, translators or teachers.