Chapter one

part one
Introduction
Rationale
Writing business reports is one of the fundamental business writing
skills. Business reports here are understood as "documents that present
information on a specific topic for a specific business purpose" (Boone,
1996: 308). Nearly all business activities involve writing business
reports, from analyzing the status of projects, summarizing business trips,
to investigating an arising problem or suggesting a change in an
organization. Writing reports sometimes becomes professional services which
are provided for a fee. The job of market research companies, for example,
is to write reports on the results from their researches on consumers'
demands for a particular product or service. Writing effective reports is
an essential skill for office workers and should be taken into
consideration in language education in colleges, especially for language
students who are likely to be office staff after graduation.
The teaching of business reports in English is a part of courses of
English for business communication, a branch of English for Specific
Purposes. English-major students, however, have to face a number of
problems when studying English as a means of business communication. First,
most of the students are not familiar with business knowledge. Most of them
have never taken part in any business activities so far. Business courses,
if any, provide just general theories of economics. Second, the materials
used for the courses are not usually tailored for language students to
learn to write business reports in English intensively. In Vietnam, some
intensive courses of English for Business Communication have to use
materials for low-intensive courses and/or those written for English native
speakers to study business communication with English as the first
language. Those materials can neither provide a thorough understanding of
the subject nor anticipate the lack of language competence of foreign
language learners.
The knowledge of writing business reports in English is considered a
need for English-major students who will soon graduate and might have to
use the knowledge in working life. However, as a newly established non-
state university, Thang Long has a remarkable number of problems in dealing
with the matter. Firstly, the university staff, most of which are little
informed teachers of English, has to begin designing the syllabus from
nothing but references from several similar available ones. As for the
courses of English for Business Communication, it is hard to find a
relevant syllabus so the staff has chosen to rely on a textbook written for
improving business communication skill for native speakers. Besides, as
language-major students, students with English major find it really
difficult to deal with business issues, let alone writing reports on the
subject.
With those difficulties, the teaching of English for business
communication in general and writing business reports in English in
particular is really a challenge. What the teacher can do now is to develop
effective teaching strategies that help students understand the subject
knowledge presented in the textbook, design useful exercises for practicing
both language aspects and writing skills and avoid making errors in writing
business reports. The study, therefore, is proposed to find out those
necessary teaching strategies for the section of teaching how to write
business reports in the course of English for Business Communication 3 at
Thang Long University. Purposes of the study
The research questions are: 1. What do language students need in learning to write business reports
in English?
2. What are the difficulties for language students in learning to write
business reports in English?
3. What are common errors made by students in writing business reports in
English?
4. What are effective strategies for teaching writing business reports in
English? From all of these, it is understood that the study aims at finding out
effective and appropriate teaching strategies to achieve more satisfying
results for the course. The satisfying results can be understood as
students' ability to convey factual information efficiently and cohesively.
Written texts must also lead to insightful and frequently profitable
solutions. It is required that business report writers address specific
audience and pay attention to appropriate format and design issues so that
a finished document can be closely read or efficiently skimmed. Evaluation
criteria should include attention to students' address of assignment, use
of persuasive insights, consistent address of target audience, and ability
to create effective summaries, headings, subheadings, lists and short
paragraphs. Lastly, reports must be expressed in accurate, appropriate and
effective sentence structures, lexical items, orthography and styles.
It is surprising that although business reports in English are used
frequently in most foreign offices in Vietnam, there have not been many
studies on this aspect of business writing or business communication. This
study attempts not only to look into the existing methodologies but also to
find out distinctive features of the teaching context at Thang Long
University and language students to apply these methodologies
appropriately.
Scope of the study
The study focuses on the teaching process of the section of writing
business reports in the course English for Business Communication 3 at
Thang Long University. It tries to suggest effective teaching strategies
that can be used in the course. A strategy can be understood as "a
carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal, or the art of
developing or carrying out such a plan" (Encarta Reference Library 2004).
Teaching strategies, therefore, can be understood as plans of action in
order to achieve a goal in teaching. In this language content-based course,
the language teacher also plays the role of an instructor who teaches
skills. The strategies, therefore, are for teaching both language and
skills. The subjects of the study are language students who major in
English, not students with business major.
The study does not deal with other kinds of reports apart from
business reports used in business activities, i.e. activities performed in
organizations operating in order to provide goods or services. English is
used in these activities to facilitate communication involving people
speaking English as the first, second or foreign language. The study only
tries to find out teaching strategies to help students learn how to write
business reports with the aspects including language, research methods,
visual aid design, writing process and organizational structure. It does
not try to suggest the needed changes of other aspects of the course and
curriculum designs, such as time allotted for the course, facility
settings, class size, and student assessment.
Methodology
The paper will present a review from published materials in the
related fields. Also, a needs analysis will be conducted among the existing
students of English major in order to find out whether language students at
Thang Long University consider teaching report writing useful and find out
the prepared teaching methods, their expectations from, their difficulties
in and their recommendations for the course. Lastly, an error analysis of
students' writing samples is used to identify the common errors made by the
students in writing business reports in English.
Books, articles and Internet resources on English for Business
Purposes, teaching English writing and business reports are collected to
examine the history of the fields and to provide available suggestions in
the practice of teaching business report writing. Next, the needs analysis
is conducted through a questionnaire survey of students who are taking the
course of English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long University.
The analysis of errors in writing samples is used in order to find out
common errors students often make when writing business reports in English.
This can help the teacher anticipate problems in the existing course and
look for proper ways to deal with these common errors and solve those
problems. The analysis also helps find out the strengths and drawbacks of
the course, which may result in appropriate adjustments in the course
contents as well as the teaching techniques of the teacher. The primary
data combine both qualitative and quantitative methods with both open and
closed questions in the questionnaire designed for the needs analysis, and
the error analysis in texts written by students.
Contents of the study
The study includes four chapters, Chapter 1 presents a review on
literature, Chapter 2 deals with the research description, Chapter 3 shows
the interpretation of data analyses, and implications for teaching how to
write business reports in English for English-major students are
recommended in Chapter 4.
In Chapter 1, the trends and approaches of English for Specific
Purposes are examined and later narrowed down to English for Business
Purposes. Also, the chapter will trace down the approaches of teaching
writing as well as analyze writi