HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

COURSE DESIGN

AND MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT

ESP COURSE DESIGNED FOR EMPLOYEES IN

THE BANKING AND FINANCE COMPANY

INSTRUCTOR: , PHD.
STUDENT NAME: LE NGUYEN HOANG SON
STUDENT ID: 2291401111089
CLASS: TDIP222

Ho Chi Minh City, December 2022

Introduction

Nowadays, English has become a universal language because it is not only

spoken as a foreign language but also used as a second language in both non-English
speaking countries and English-speaking countries. In addition, English also has
various styles of communication, namely trade, business, employees, etc. In
comparison to traditional classrooms, which evaluate students’ evaluation via scores,
students in current English classrooms want to learn English to improve their speaking
and writing skills. Focusing on these two English skills doesn’t mean that the time for
practicing other skills will be reduced, therefore, it is necessary for both interlocutors
to integrate different skills into each lesson. Many researchers have conducted some
research to examine the importance of studying English in particular fields
(Mantasiah, 2010).

It is undeniable to state that teachers must equip students with English

knowledge. However, the question has been raised “What do people actually need in
order to learn English effectively?”. Obviously, answers to this question will be varied
when the English proficiency among learners is not similar. Unlike English major
learners, non-English major learners have their own purposes when learning English.
For instance, an accountant is required to understand not only numbers but also the
language used in documents, and the hotel receptionist must have the ability to
communicate with foreigners as well as outstanding writing skills to answer
customers’ emails. Because of various purposes among learners, English courses, in
this day and age, should be designed based on the learners’ needs, job orientation, and
interests.

There are two specifications relating to English teaching: General English (GE)
and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Far (2008) agreed that unlike GE, which
needs, and other achievements cannot be decided, ESP serves only one purpose which
is meeting different types of needs and demands. According to Unal (2014), two
aspects that make ESP different from GE are the concentration on teaching meaning
instead of grammar instructions and the primary aim to bring real-life situations into
each lesson. Richard and Schmidt (2010) define ESP as “A language course or

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program of instruction in which the content and aims of the course are fixed by the
specific needs of a particular group of learners”. Regarding the definition from
Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.19), they have a clear explanation of ESP when they
think that it is a language-teaching approach that depends on learners’ needs and
interests. One of the most noticeable benefits of ESP is that it offers students
opportunities to use the target language in academics (students of several fields), and
professionals (employees from different jobs). The appropriate developed program of
ESP materials will help students not only with their knowledge but also with the
required skills for particular professions they would like to achieve after finishing the
course.

Due to the lack of English courses for non-English learners along with personal
interest in the ESP course design, this paper will focus on English Course Design for
Employees working in banking and finance companies. Some sections will be
discussed, namely, the target population description, instruments used for the needs
assessment, aims and objectives of the course, and syllabus design. Besides some
information related to the course, a description of instructional materials including
primary, supplemental, and incidental materials, and a self-evaluation of the materials’
selection will also be included before moving on to the conclusion.

Description of the target population of the needs assessment

One of the first steps to developing a successful English course is to figure out
the needs of learners pertaining to their wishes, desire, demands, expectation,
motivations, and requirements. After that, we need to analyze their needs based on the
data collection when need analysis is considered to be a continuing process. The term
“target population” refers to specific groups or individuals who are currently
experiencing a problem or need. Selecting a suitable target population will help
teachers and administrators to have one step closer to the success of designing a good
English course.

After taking into consideration, there are three objectives related to the target
population including students (bankers), teachers, and employers. A short description
of these objectives and needed information will be introduced. Regarding teachers,

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they are required to have at least three-year experience working with adult learners,
and advanced English proficiency by showing academic certificates such as IELTS or
TOEFL iBT. The needed information for teachers will be related to common
communication problems (lack of vocabulary and confidence, hesitation, word usage,
etc.) and frequencies of errors in different types of situations. This information will
help course designers to understand students’ difficulties, and then find out suitable
solutions. As for students (bankers), official employees working for both domestic and
foreign banks are allowed to attend a course. Before attending a course, they have to
take a placement test as a requirement. The needed information for them will be
related mostly to what English skills they would like to improve, their preferences for
different kinds of activities in teaching, and their expectations after participating in the
English course. Employers are the ones who are responsible for checking employees’
studying progress and providing opportunities for employees to learn English as a job
requirement. The needed information for this group will be related to situations in
which English is frequently used, the expected learning outcome of their employees
after learning an English course, and the frequencies of errors made in different
working situations in daily life. This information will help not only employers to have
better recruitments in the near future but also teachers to understand their students in
various aspects such as strengths, witnesses, and common mistakes.

Instruments used for the needs assessment

In order to collect the aforementioned data, there are two research instruments
will use in this part: questionnaires and interviews. The reason for choosing
questionnaires as one of the instruments to collect data is that it offers a basis
according to an inquiry (Brancato et al., 2004). An interview is also considered to be a
useful instrument for researchers to get information about people’s feelings, opinions,
and ideas about a particular topic (Ary et al.,2010). Currently, I am a teacher at
AROMA Center, which is one of the English studying places in Ho Chi Minh City
that teaches English to employees. 20 students in one of my classes will do a
questionnaire, and 5 of them are accepted to have a short interview after finishing the
questionnaire.

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 Questionnaire

Regarding the questionnaire, it is defined as one of the research instruments

that includes a series of questions or various kinds of prompts. The purpose of
conducting a questionnaire is to collect data from different people and serve other
academic purposes. Types of questions could be closed-ended or open-ended
questions.

To have some information about students’ needs as well as their expectations, a

questionnaire has been made and administered to students, who are currently an
employee at a banking and finance company. In a questionnaire, there are 11
questions in total. Some question types can be named such as factual questions,
multiple choice questions, scaled questions, ranked questions, and short answer
questions. All of the questions in the questionnaires are about the general information
of learners, their English studying process, English difficulties, and their expectations.
The questionnaire forms are printed and administered directly to students. There are
15 minutes to do this questionnaire (see Appendix A), and their responses will be
anonymous to keep the privacy of students. Regarding the content of the
questionnaire, it will be described.

Interview

First, an interview can be seen as a conversation between an interviewer and

two to three interviewees in order to collect the required responses or answers. In
qualitative research, interviews are conducted mainly when researchers ask
participants basic, open-ended questions and record their responses. As mentioned
above, the interview is a useful tool for researchers to reveal the story behind students’
experiences and detailed information about a specific topic.

The interview that I use for my course design will be the semi-structured
interview. The interviewer and respondents will join in a formal interview. After that,
the interviewer uses an “interview guide” and develops. The “interview guide” is a list
of questions and topics that are necessary to be covered during the conversation in a
particular order. As an interviewer, he or she will follow the guide and is able to add

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more detailed questions when he or she feels that it is an appropriate time to do so.
Regarding the questionnaire in this paper (see Appendix B), there are three parts.
First, some demographic questions will be asked, and this part usually lasts about 5
minutes. Next, the interviewees are asked to answer several questions related to their
current jobs before they move on to the last part, whose questions are pertained to
their English study. The last two parts will last for approximately 15 minutes.

Report on findings of needs assessment

Findings from Questionnaire

Chart 1: Respondent’s Age

Based on
Chart 1, most of
the Figure 1

participants are between 21 to 25 years old, with exactly 60% in total. There are only
20% of respondents for the other two age groups, namely 18 to 20, and 26 to 30.
Below are the next charts from responses to questionnaires about students’ working
experience as a banker and their English proficiency.
Chart 2: How long they have been working as a banker

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 Chart 3: Students’ English proficiency

Based on Chart 2 and Chart 3, most of the participants have less than a year of
working as a banker, with 75% in total. There are exactly 15% of respondents who
have 1 to 2 years of experience, followed by those who have 3 to 5 years of
experience, with only 10%. Regarding their beginning level of English, most of them
are at an intermediate level (50%), followed by beginners (20%) and others (15% for
pre-intermediate and 15% for advanced). The following charts will measure the
importance of English among participants via various aspects.
Chart 4: How long they have been working as a banker

Chart 5: Students’ time spending to learn English

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 Due to the job requirement, 95% of secretaries have taken English courses, and
they are willing to spend at least 1-2 hours per day studying English (45%). Some are
willing to pay less than an hour to learn English (35%), and they rarely spend more
than 3 hours learning English. The next aspect will be their favor towards online or
offline classes and their reasons for their choice.
Chart 6: Students’ form of learning

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 When asked if participants enjoy online or offline classes, 75% prefer offline
classes to online classes due to better interactions between teachers and students. It
can be easily observed from these charts that few students choose to have online
learning when they seem to believe that they are easy to lose their concentration as
well as lack of hands-on experience. Regarding online platforms, Google Meet is their
favorite one (50%) while Zoom and Microsoft Teams are less favorable, with 37,5%
and 12,5% respectively. The next type of question will be a scaled question, which
includes some banking tasks employees usually do at work, and they are asked to
scale these tasks from very difficult to very easy. The table below will list some tasks
that participants think are normal.
Table 1: Scaled Tasks

Based on Table 1, we can easily see that task 1, task 3, task 6, and task 7 are
some tasks that participants think are normal. Apart from these tasks, the most

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challenging one is solving client queries and complaints. Next, we move on to other
two questions. The first question asks each participant to scale from 1 to 5 regarding
the importance of each skill in their job, and the second one is their perspective
towards the most difficult English aspects when learning English. These two questions
will be shown in the two tables below.

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 Chart 7: The importance of each skill

Chart 8: the most difficult English aspects when learning English

Based on the data in Chart 7, of the 4 skills, listening seems to be considered

the most important, followed by Writing, and then Speaking. Reading is deemed
important by many as normal or important, but not very important. According to the
data in Chart 8, participants are also asked about the skills that cause difficulty for
them the most. They can choose more than one answer to this question. As a result, 13
people (equivalent to 65%) said that vocabulary is the hardest one, perhaps there are
too many words that they have seen or heard when working as a secretary.
Pronunciation and grammar sections share the same percentage (35%). The last

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aspects, according to the questionnaire, are related to affective factors and students’
expectations from an English course, which will be shown via a chart and a table
below.
Chart 9: Affective factors

Table 2: Students’ Expectations from an English course

Regarding affective factors, it seems that most respondents have a positive
attitude toward learning and using English, as evidenced by the fact that the majority

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of respondents agreed or totally agreed with statements such as "I feel very
confident..." or "I am personally motivated to learn English." Or "I am not afraid to
make mistakes in learning English.". Based on the data from the table, most
expectations have to do with skill improvement, especially communication skills,
while some also expect to have qualified and enthusiastic teachers.
Findings from an interview
As aforementioned, there are 5 participants in the interview. Most of the
participants are able to answer questions from the list, and only a few students need to
translate the meaning of questions into Vietnamese. Due to the recordings from 5
participants, I can see that their pronunciation, range of vocabulary, and listening
ability are some aspects that they have to improve. Furthermore, 3 participants lack
self-confidence which is considered to be one of the requirements for speaking skill
development. Apart from questions related to demographic and current work, which
students can answer quickly and easily, there are differences in the question about
some difficulties when communicating in English. The first two participants said that
they hesitated about what to say next after introducing themselves whereas others
believed that lacking vocabulary along with grammar structures are barriers that they
have to face. Most of them have started to learn English as a Second Language since
they were in grade 6. Regarding in-class activities, they all agree that teachers should
use various activities to promote students’ engagement in class. There is an interesting
fact, which is that they do not know any reliable learning materials to use apart from
textbooks provided by their teacher. For the last question, speaking and listening are
two skills that they are expected to improve, and none of them have a clear studying
plan when joining an English course.
Aims and Objectives of the course

Based on the data report above, it is acceptable to state that speaking and
listening are two skills that all participants hope to improve. In addition, the report
above also provides participants with detailed information about age, learning style,
daily tasks, and expectations when joining an English course. The aims and objectives
of the course below are designed with the aim to meet the student’s needs.
The aims of the course are:

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- Provide students with banking and finance vocabulary.
- Improve students’ listening, and note-taking skills by listening to authentic
materials in the office environment.
- Promote students’ interest and encourage them to learn deeply about banking
and finance
- Enhance students’ working skills such as team-working, presentation,
negotiating, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
By the end of the course, and have successfully accomplished the relevant tasks
and in-class activities, students will be able to:
- Use effectively various phrases and expressions in banking and finance in
working places.
- Learn how to listen well in conversational interactions and how to develop
better listening strategies by taking notes.
- Use English as a tool to analyze primary issues concerning banking and finance
topics, using the knowledge presented during the course:
O Discuss reasons why the financial system appears, and how they are
structured.
O Discuss some of the risks that may be faced by banks, and use the knowledge
of banking and finance to figure out ways to deal with them.
O Distinguish different kinds of financial instruments
- Enhance students' English self-confidence and develop good studying habits in
the long-term period.
- Be able to do the following in their jobs:
O Propose ideas to colleagues
O Negotiate or Discuss to reach agreements
A fully Design Syllabus
COURSE SYLLABUS
1. Course general information
- Course title in English: English for Banking and Finance 1
- Course code: 00222
- Course requirement and facility support:

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 + Classroom fully equipped with TV screen, computers, speakers, boards
+ Online Studying Platforms (Zoom, Google Classroom, Facebook groups)
2. Course Summary
- This course is designed for bankers who aim to improve their vocabulary,
pronunciation, and grammar for application in the relevant office
environment. The course also aims to provide students with communication
skills (proposing, discussing, negotiating, etc.), the practice of note-taking
skills, and social skills (greetings, making conversations, answering the
phone, etc.).
- The course seeks to enable students to recognize their strengths,
weaknesses, and needs in language learning in order to improve their
confidence to use English more effectively to achieve their own goals. It
also seeks to develop students’ skills in independent learning outside the
classroom. Specifically, in speaking classes, students are not only provided
with language knowledge with relevant communicative functions but also
conversation skills, along with real-world documentary films. 
3. Entry and exit level:
- Entry level: IELTS equivalent: 5.0 overall grade (no skills under 5.0)
(see www.CambridgeESOL.org/about/standards/cefr.html)
- Exit level: CEFR B2 (students are expected to reach AT LEAST 6.0
IELTS)
4. Syllabus Framework
- Topical
- Functional
5. Course Content
(See Appendix C)
6. Detailed Learning Plan

WEEK NO. OF TOPIC LEARNING METHODOLOGIES ASSESSMENT

HOURS OUTCOMES
1-2 7.5 Unit 1: After unit 1, Lectures and Recitation
hours Personal the student is discussion Presentation
(5 Finance expected to: Case Study Quiz

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 lessons, -Getting to -Introduce Problem Solving
1,5 know you yourself
hours (p.4) -Talk about
for each -Names and countries,
lesson) numbers (p.6) nationalities,
-Paying for and languages
things (p.8) -Say names
-Managing and numbers
your money -Talk about
(p.10) personal
-Review finances
(p.11)
3-4 7.5 Unit 2: Jobs After Unit 2, Lectures and Recitation
hours in banking the learner will discussion Reaction
(5 -Starting out be able to: Case Study papers
lessons, (p.12) -Talk about Problem Solving Quizzes
1,5 -What do you things in an
hours do every day office
for each (p.14) -Describe
lesson) -What’s your banks and
job? (p.16) their services
-Customer -Talk about
care (p.18) daily routines
-Review -Talk about
(p.19) duties and
responsibilities
5-6 7.5 Unit 3: After unit 3, Lectures and Recitation
hours Banking the student is discussion Presentation
(5 products and expected to: Case Study Quiz
lessons, services -Talk about Problem Solving
1,5 -Products and banking
hours Services products and
for each (p.20) services
lesson) -What can -Talk about
you do? what you can
(p.22) and can’t do.
-What can -Talk about
banks give to what banks
customers can offer
(p.24) customers
-Customer -Talk about
service (p.26) what
-Review customers
(p.27) want from
their bank
7–8 7.5 Unit 4: Bank After Unit 4, Lectures and Recitation
hours transaction the learner will discussion Reaction
(5 -What are be able to: Case Study papers
lessons, they doing? -Talk about Problem Solving Quizzes
1,5 (p.28) what is

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 hours -How can I happening
for each help you? now
lesson) (p.30) -Use polite
-Foreign language
currency -Talk about
(p.32) foreign
-Asking currency
Questions -Ask questions
(p.34)
-Review
(p.36)
8 1,5 Midterm Exam
hours
9 - 10 7.5 Unit 5: After unit 5, Lectures and Recitation
hours Investment the student is discussion Presentation
(5 -Investing expected to: Case Study Quiz
lessons, money (p.36) -Talk about Problem Solving
1,5 -Spreading types of
hours the risk (p.38) investment
for each -The stock -Talk about
lesson) market (p.40) investment
- portfolios.
Arrangements -Talk about
and the stock
appointments market
(p.41) -Talk about
-Review arrangements
(p.43) and
appointments
11 - 12 7.5 Unit 6: A After Unit 6, Lectures and Recitation
hours career in the learner will discussion Reaction
(5 accountancy be able to: Case Study papers
lessons, -Who needs -Talk about Problem Solving Quizzes
1,5 accountants? the
hours (p.44) accountancy
for each -What do profession
lesson) accountants -Talk about
do? (p.46) future
-Jobs in intentions
accountancy -Talk about
(p.48) accountancy
-What makes jobs
a good -Talk about
accountant the qualities
(p.50) needed to be
-Review an accountant
(p.51)
13 – 14 7.5 Unit 7: An After unit 7, Lectures and Recitation
hours accountant’s the student is discussion Presentation
(5 life expected to: Case Study Quiz

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 lessons, -Was it a -Talk about Problem Solving
1,5 good the past
hours conference -Talk about
for each (p.52) calculations.
lesson) -Calculation -Talk about
(p.54) things you
-She worked did /didn’t do
hard -Talk about
yesterday stages in your
(p.56) career
-He became -Talk about a
an accountant tax return
(p.57) + a tax
return (p.58)
-Review
(p.59)
15 – 16 7.5 Unit 8: The After Unit 8, Lectures and Recitation
hours economy the learner will discussion Reaction
(5 -Economic be able to: Case Study papers
lessons, indicators -Talk about Problem Solving Quizzes
1,5 (p.60) economic
hours -Trends and indicators
for each numbers -Talk about
lesson) (p.62) trends in the
-Predictions economy
(p.64) -Make
-The central predictions
bank (p.65) + -Give positive
Good news, and negative
bad news news
(p.66) -Talk about
-Review central banks
(p.67)
17 1,5 Final Exam
hours
17 63
weeks hours

7. Textbook
- English for Banking & Finance Level 1 Coursebook 1st edition (see
Appendix D to see the front pages of this book)
8. References (Reading Materials)
- Brandl, Michael. Money, Banking and Financial Markets
- Lascano, Baron and Cachero. Fundamentals of Financial Markets
9. Grading System

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 - Class Standing (70%) includes:
o Quizzes (20%)
o In-class Practice (10%)
o Assignments, recitation (10%)
o Attendance (10%)
o Midterm test (20%)
- Final Exam (30%)
Total: (100%)

A description of instructional materials including primary, supplemental, and

incidental materials
Based on the needs analysis finding mentioned above, banking and finance
learners need to have a lot of speaking and listening practice apart from providing
topical vocabulary and useful structures. As a result, they can build their self-
confidence and help them to interact well with others, especially foreigners. To
achieve that goal, the classroom itself must be a friendly environment, and teachers
are required to use various instructional materials to make each lesson become lively
and interesting. Therefore, the development of instructional materials is necessary to
facilitate the teaching and learning process. The use of instructional resources in the
classroom has the potential to enhance student comprehension of the topics being
taught by facilitating the teacher's ability to convey new concepts more clearly
(Kadzera, 2006). There are three instructional materials resources including primary
resources, supplemental resources, and incidental resources. To know exactly how
these materials work, one teaching lesson from the textbook (Unit 1, Lesson 1:
Getting to know you) (see Appendix E) will be used to demonstrate.
Primary Resources
Primary resources are defined as the main instructional materials used during a
course and may include various materials from textbooks to multimedia. They are
considered to be comprehensive, including an extensive scope and sequence of skills
and concepts, use different instructional strategies, and identify the primary
instructional tool for a grade level. Materials, which are related to textbooks, are

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considered to be primary resources. Some materials could be named such as teacher
books, workbooks, compact discs, computer software, CD-ROMS, and electronic
resources. Textbooks are designated as the primary source of instruction for students
in a course. When using textbooks, there are some advantages:
- They give the content framework for the course curriculum.
- They ensure quality (students in various classrooms are exposed to
comparable material).
- They provide a range of instructional materials (workbook, CD, Classware,
etc.).
- They are effective in saving teachers time for lesson preparation.
- They can offer useful language examples and input
- They may instruct instructors and are aesthetically
As aforementioned, English for Banking & Finance Level 1 Students’ Book is
the textbook that I choose for banking employees. There are various reasons to explain
my choice. First, it emphasizes speaking and listening skills via different tasks in each
lesson, therefore, teachers can use their creativity to make some other activities related
to the content and objectives of that lesson. Second, the textbook also promotes
students’ interests and meets their specific needs when one lesson contains all 4 skills
and provides a wide range of vocabulary. Lastly, along with the textbook, audio files
are provided for teachers to teach listening. With the assistance of audio files (45
soundtracks), teachers can ask students to do some further listening tasks, which
require them to listen to details, besides just doing specific tasks in the textbook. For
example, students will listen to soundtrack number 2 in their first lesson, and they
have to note down useful phrases in the audio relating to greeting people and asking
about their nationality.
Supplemental materials
Supplemental materials are book or non-book materials, which are used to
enhance an instructional program, and cannot replace the primary ones. According to
Ur (2013), supplemental materials can be classified into two categories including
paper and digital. Based on her opinion, reference books, textbooks, teacher
handbooks, test papers, posters, and flashcards are paper supplemental materials.

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Nevertheless, digital supplemental materials include whiteboards (IWBs), the internet,
digital tools and recording, blogs, mobile apps, and e-books. Nowadays, with the
development of technology, students are familiar with cutting-edge devices, therefore,
teachers are likely to combine both paper and digital materials in teaching. Regarding
its advantages, these materials help teachers to motivate students by creating good
studying habits and encouraging them to use English in class (Dodd, 2015).
Additionally, understanding the information from a given text about people and
culture, reducing the L1 usage in class, and reducing teachers’ burden while showing
the learning items.
E-books are supplemental materials that I use during the English course for
banking and finance employees instead of using traditional ones. As already
mentioned in the syllabus above, two reference books are Money, Banking and
Financial Markets and Fundamentals of Financial Markets (see Appendix F to see the
front page of these textbooks). The primary reason for these two books is that there
are many case studies as well as clear and detailed instructions for each task, which
helps students to improve their self-study. Besides e-books, online dictionaries
(Cambridge and Oxford), and test papers are also considered to be useful
supplemental materials during this English course. For example, before the first
lesson, they have to search for the meaning and pronunciation of new words (Brazil,
British, China, French, German, Italian, Japanese) by using online dictionaries.
Incidental materials
The occasional use of incidental instructional materials is at the discretion of
the classroom instructor. Depending on the classroom instructor's choice, incidental
teaching items may be genuine or nonauthentic, first, second, or third dimension
instructional materials. Regarding the first-dimensional materials, it emphasizes on
sense of sight (posters, graphs, text, slides, photos) and the sense of sound (radio,
MP3, recorded dialog, recorded interview, etc). The second-dimensional IMs focus on
stimulating two senses: the sense of sight and the sense of sound (lectures, films,
Youtube videos, plays, TV news, and online learning platforms). The last one, which
is Third-Dimensional IMs, is used to stimulate more than two senses (real objects and
field trips).

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 Personally, I think it is necessary to combine the first two dimensional
materials at the same time in one lesson. Regarding this English course, the first two-
dimensional materials will be applied. Taking the first lesson of this course as an
example, PowerPoint slides, photos of different countries, and audio recordings are
used as first-dimensional materials. The second-dimensional material will be
YouTube by using videos from TedTalk. These applications for both dimensional
materials will be demonstrated in Appendix G.
An evaluation of the selection of these instructional materials

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 References

Kadzera (2006). Use of instructional technologies in teacher training colleges in

Malawi. Doctoral Dissertation,Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State

University.

Dodd, A. R. (2015). The use of supplementary materials in English foreign language

classes in Ecuadorian secondary schools. English Language Teaching , 8 (9),

Retrieved from http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ elt/article/viewFile/ 5

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