Strategies for teaching business report writing to language students at thang long university

unt of practice should be improved for students to have more chance to work in the field. Moreover, it is not surprising that the students seem not really familiar with some of the modern teaching and learning methods. The students do not highly appreciate the effectiveness of self-studying through reading materials. This may be blamed for the inactiveness of Vietnamese students who have gotten used to sitting in classroom, listening to lectures and doing the dictation passively and they have modest skills of searching and analyzing materials. Furthermore, the students prefer the teacher's explanation and translation of sample reports to students' reading and discussion. These findings are really significant in adjusting the content and teaching strategies of how to write business reports in English in the course of English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long University. They will be considered during the process of looking for effective teaching strategies that suit the teaching context. These strategies will be discussed in the following chapter. CHAPTER IV Implications for Teaching Strategies The study is to find out the effective strategies of teaching how to write business reports in English for English-major students at Thang Long University. Therefore, these implications will deal with various steps in the teaching process. iv.1. implications for Presenting the Knowledge It can be said that this content-based course of English for Business Communication 3 has a balance between the language elements and the subject content. The language elements include both specific vocabulary and structures used in business world, especially in business writing. The major language skill to be developed here is writing. However, students need to have reading skill at certain level in order to understand what the teacher and the materials say, and to comprehend the data provided to practice writing reports. The subject content of this part of the course includes knowledge on the uses, requirements and some tips and other insights to be successful in writing business reports. IV.1.1. PRESENTING LANGUAGE ELEMENTS Classroom time should be divided for teaching both language and the subject knowledge. However, the course is not required to provide new language items but to use the known ones in various business situations and to develop writing skills. Therefore, students' awareness of language items should be raised through tasks and exercises designed for the purpose. The teacher can apply task-based learning here for teaching language elements. As a newly emerged trend, task-based learning is considered not only a motivating tool but also an effective way to raise the students' consciousness. In tasked-based learning, students are motivated because there are specific tasks' outcomes for them to fulfill; therefore, they know for sure when they have reached an achievement and they can enjoy the satisfaction. Also, in order to fulfill the task, students have to find appropriate language to negotiate and to solve problems, which approaches learning from the students' awareness of the needs to use the knowledge. For example, in teaching language typical of business report genre, the teacher can combine reading tasks of report samples with writing tasks. Students may discuss on the use of language in the samples and use the language in writing tasks. By fulfilling tasks like these, students' awareness of language can be raised. Besides, language can also be taught through providing exercises, which will be discussed in further details in the next part of designing exercises. The following examples are adapted with some changes in the visuals from Comfort (1984: 22-23, 39-40), the first deals with language describing data changes and comparisons and the second with style. These examples include a presentation of the use of language items in specific situations followed by some exercises for the students to practice that use. Example 1: 2.3 Language Practice In this section you will practice language that is useful in statistical writing 2.3.1. Amount and difference In 1979, the price of oil stood at $1.5. Oil prices rose by $0.3 in 1980. Oil prices rose from $1.5 to $1.8 in 1980. There was an increase of $0.3 in 1980. … Now look at this graph showing sales and complete the sentences that follow. 1. In February, sales increased ………. $80,000. 2. The following month, there was a further increase ………. $20,000. 3. In April, they remained constant ………. $100,000. 4. In the next two months, they dropped ………. $40,000. 5. As a result of this fall, they were back ………. $60,000 in June. 6. The next three months saw a steady rise ………. $120,000 in September. 7. This was followed by a dramatic fall ………. $40,000 in October. 8. Sales rose in December to finish the year ………. $100,000. (Comfort, 1984:22-23) Example 2: 4.2.3 Style Match the following extracts from reports with the styles listed on the right I think we should go ahead and invest in this project. If we don't, we'll be missing a golden opportunity. Investment in this project is imperative. Failure to invest would mean a missed opportunity. No time should be wasted in advertising the post. Any delay will certainly result in less efficiency. We should consider advertising the post. If we don't, it could lead to a reduction in efficiency. impersonal, formal and very sure personal and unsure impersonal and very sure personal and informal Now consider which of the following features are present in the above extracts: 1 2 3 4 Personal pronouns Passive Idiomatic phrases Expressions of certainty Expressions of possibility 4.3. LANGUAGE PRACTICE 4.3.1. Impersonal reporting Here are some useful expressions for reporting meetings or discussions impersonally. Topic/subject X was discussed. X was considered. Opinion It was felt that … Opinion varied about … Different opinions were expressed about… Agreement/disagreement It was agreed that … There was no agreement about… Recommendation It was suggested that … It was recommended that … It was proposed that … Conclusion It was concluded that … No conclusions were reached about… It was decided that… Now report the following statements: We've been talking for several hours about levels of investment. Most of us think that we should increase our investment in the manufacturing sector. We have heard a wide range of opinions on the subject of trade with China. So we all agree that the advertising budget should be increased by 5%. Mr. Stevens has suggested that we double our spending on TV advertising. I personally recommend that we leave it at the same level. We don't seem to be able to reach agreement on the question of advertising. I propose we postpone this matter until next week. We all feel that we have spent enough time on this question. We agreed with Peter when he said that we should allow more time for this question at the next meeting. (Comfort, 1984: 39-40) IV.1.2. PRESENTING CONTENT KNOWLEDGE Naidu (1992) describes traditional teacher-centered ways of educating in which students have to listen inactively to lectures. He argues that the approach may result in the students not understanding what is presented as "an authoritative view of the text" and is sometimes "beyond and outside student grasp or need." With a view to provide a students' version of the text, not the teacher's one, Plourde (2001) has suggested seven teaching strategies in content-based courses as follows: Use tasks that emphasize higher thinking skills (e.g., synthesizing, evaluating, organizing, problem solving, clarifying, etc.) Visually support content – realia, video, CALL, etc. Vary the ways to teach content (e.g., collaborative group work, peer editing, information gap activity, etc.) Support content linguistically (e.g., clarifying, paraphrasing, modeling) Explain rationales/objectives and recap/review the lesson Teach vocabulary as a separate skill Connect learners’ background/experiences to the content (Plourde, 2001) Based on the suggestions by Plourde (2001), the content knowledge of English for Business Communication 3 at Thang Long can be presented with various classroom activities and homework tasks. Some of the possible ways include students discussing, giving questions for students to think, providing students with reading materials. These activities should be interwoven with finding connections between students' existing experience on the field and the new knowledge. In general, there should be carefully-prepared procedures for presenting the content knowledge so that the above strategies are maintained. More importantly, the content knowledge of what needed to know when writing business reports in English should be presented with the content of business situation. The following example is a task of writing conclusions that includes questions for guiding students on using writing conclusions in business reports. This unit deals with two separate stages in a report, the conclusions and the recommendations. However, these two stages are connected logically. Conclusions are drawn when the findings have been analyzed. Recommendations are practical courses of action based on the conclusions. 5.1. READING AND UNDERSTANDING You work for an agricultural machinery manufacturer, Ferton PLC. You have been asked to write a report with the following terms of reference: to investigate the reasons for a drop in Ferton tractor sales in Morlanda in order to recommend action to recapture market share. Your investigation revealed the following statistics: Your findings can be stated as follows: a. The total volume of sales dropped. b. There was a very significant drop in sales during the summer months. c. The trend for the year was almost identical to the previous year. based on these findings and on the other evidence you conclude that the poor sales are due to the following factors: a. The recent entry onto the market of a new competitor, JDC Tractors. b. The main agent takes his holiday during the summer months. c. The agent's deputy make few contacts during this period. d. The usual seasonal influences. 1. What is the purpose of the investigation? 2. In which months did sales reach their peak? 3. In which month did sales have their low point? 4. Which of the following seasonal factors would explain the trend? a. Farmers generally buy tractors in the first three months of the year. b. Government subsidies to farmers are paid out in April. c. Farmers buy a lot of machinery during the summer harvest months. d. A lot of farmers replace their tractors after heavy use in harvest months. e. A lot of farmers buy tractors during the ploughing season (November and December) (Comfort, 1984: 43-44) Secondly, presenting with visual aids are not only preferred by the students (as suggested in the questionnaire survey results) but also proven to be suitable to the learning style for a number of learners who prefer visual learning. The use of presentation slides designed on computers makes the message both appealing and understandable. IV.1.3. Analyzing report samples The role of using samples has been discussed in the literature review in Chapter I, and cannot be denied. Moreover, Thang Long University language students, who, as analyzed in Chapter III, certainly lack experience in business field, can benefit from analyzing samples with understandings on the theme and business situations. To maximize the benefits, as suggested by the needs analysis survey, it is much agreed that teacher's explanations make it easier and quicker for students to understand a sample. Also, transferring samples into the first common language is a good way to understand them both in writing skills and business knowledge. Besides, the teacher should also vary ways of sample analyzing and combine teacher explanations with students' discussions. The analysis should cover all aspects including presentation, content, organization, and language elements of business report. One effective tool in doing that is the checklist in assessing business reports which will be discussed later in this chapter. The checklist is designed for students to assess their own and their peers' reports but can also be used to analyze sample reports. More important, the analysis needs to help draw lessons on the dos and don'ts in writing business reports in English in all of these aspects. These lessons can be in the form of showing both strengths and weaknesses that the samples have in order to help students realize both what they should learn from the sample and what the sample's errors they should avoid. The results of the sample writing error analysis, however, reveals one drawback of using samples or models in teaching writing. The copying of the sample's phrases and wording can be blamed for the misunderstanding of learners that the sample is a model that they must follow when writing business reports. Another possible reason is the students' lack of knowledge in the field, so they are not confident to use phrases or structures that they have not seen in sample reports. To restrict this copying, the instructor should provide them with a large enough number of samples for each report type and give clear distinctions between what the students must follow and what the students can decide themselves. IV.2. Giving exercises IV.2.1. Language exercises The courses of English for Business Communication in Thang Long University must aim at enhancing the students' language competence in the field. The part of the course with writing business reports in English, therefore, must be responsible for improving students' English language, which includes grammar and vocabulary accuracy, orthography, style and sentence writing skills. Firstly, with 118 out of the total 241 linguistic errors, grammar became the most serious linguistic problem in the error analysis. However, it is not the aim of the course to provide students with grammar lessons and tests. That is why the grammar exercises should focus on practicing the commonly-used structures in the genre of business report. Based on the error analysis, the teacher should design exercises to help students to be aware of and to use these structures properly. Secondly, the lack of students' vocabulary, as presented by the error analysis, suggests there should be exercises enhancing the use of words, especially business terms, in report writing. The exercises can be made up from extracts of business reports in English, for example, gap-filling or multiple-choice exercises. The former helps students realize the meanings of the words and their use, while the latter distinguishes among the confusing words for them. These kinds of exercises are easy to prepare by deciding which vocabulary to practice and finding available sample reports with the chosen vocabulary. The teacher can prepare these exercises by collecting sentences from sample business reports and build gap-filling exercises, transformation or matching exercises based on these items. These exercises should have a focus on a limited number of language elements to facilitate memories. Thirdly, orthography, which is not a content of this high-level course, can be dealt with through peer correction and self-correction which are discussed in the part of error management in students' writing papers. Finally, style is a difficult aspect for writing students of English, but it is practical for writing business reports in English. It is recommended that students practice the style used in business reports together be provided with understanding on the field. Therefore, there should be systematic instructions on requirements on style in business reports. Once students know the principles of styling, they can correct the errors on styles themselves or through peer correction. Style can also be developed together with learning vocabulary and grammar when students are aware of the stylistic features of the words or structures. Below is an example language exercise extracted from Business Reports in English (Comfort, Revel and Stott, 1984). The exercise is on the use of noun phrases in business reports and on the passive voice, and both are typical characteristics of report language. Using the gap-filling task with common report expressions, the exercise drills students to use these language elements accurately and appropriately. Reports are often formalized by using noun phrases. Example: We propose to advertise externally. External advertising is proposed Make noun phrases for the following sentences in a similar way: We recommend that employees retire at the age of 65. A .................................. of 65 is recommended. We need a manager responsive for developing careers. A .................................. is needed. We suggest that posts are advertised by job agencies. .................................. is suggested. We would prefer to train staff internally. .................................. would be preferred. We should cost advertising in national newspapers. .................................. should be costed. We must request senior management to make recommendations. .................................. must be requested. We recommend that material is collected carefully. .................................. is recommended. We advise you to select the material well. .................................. is advised. (Comfort, Revell, and Stott, 1984:34-35) IV.2.2. EXERCISES ON WRITING BUSINESS REPORTS Normally, a section with an aspect of the subject content should be followed by practice exercises so that students have the chance to grasp the knowledge. Exercises can range from practicing a part of the skill to writing the whole reports. Designing exercises should be based on knowledge, microskills needed to be mastered and the common errors by students so that the exercises can raise students' awareness of the subject and avoid them to make those common errors. The most common problems with the report organization are separating, connecting and uniting the parts of the reports. There are examples of exercises enhancing the unity and coherence of the paragraph in Carol (1997: 350-352). For checking unity, the exercise writer adds in a complete paragraph some sentences "that wander off the subject" and makes the idea "hard to follow", then asks students to cross out these sentences. For improving coherence, another kind of exercise is designed to ask students to check logical order of ideas and adding transitions when needed. These exercises can be reproduced with text of business report content for the students' reference. The samples of students writing can also be good materials for this purpose because they reflects the errors that have been really made and may be made by other students as well. Exercises on using headings in reports should let students know why and how headings are used. One example for this kind of exercise is described here, using the two report samples from the book Business Communication Today by Bovee, Thill and Schatzman, 2003 (382-383). The first sample is of a report draft without any headings, and the second one is the first one's revised version with appropriate headings and adjustments. The instructor can show students the first one to discuss the drawbacks and try to improve the first version. The second version, then, can be provided as an example of improvement. Students will discuss and find out what headings play in making the message to be transferred. Exercises on organizing information are useful in teaching organizational structures of business reports. Examples include some exercises from Northey, 1998, in which information is provided on a certain business situation but under an inappropriate form to report readers. Suggestions are to be provided that headings and lists should be used to aid clear and quick understanding. Students will reorganize the information so that the rewritten version can fit into the whole business reports. These exercises make students aware of what report organization is like and how to transfer information to report readers in effective and reportlike ways. With assignments of writing the whole reports, students are normally provided with information of a situation in which a business report needs to be written. As can be seen from the results of the questionnaire survey, a great amount of students claim they do not have enough practical experience in business activities. Therefore, one important requirement of this kind of practice exercises is that they have to provide enough information and contain limited inferences that require learners use their knowledge of business field. A good exercise in this case should also help students imagine the process of the business activity that they may have never encountered. The following extract is from the book "Writing Business Report in English" (Comfort, 1984). This is an example of what the exercises in business situations should be like because it provides detailed description of the business situation which assists students imaginations and the questions which are designed to help students understanding of the situation. After analyzing the situation, the instructor can direct students to write a complete report based on the information provided. 1 COLLECTING THE INFORMATION This first unit is about an important stage in writing an effective report - putting together the information. If you want to write a good report, you must be able to use the resources that are available and decide which information is useful and which is not. 1.1 READING AND UNDERSTANDING In this section you will see four sets of information. You have to decide the importance of this information for the reporting task below. Your company, Interbloc Inc., is a large manufacturer of industrial machinery. You work as Assistant Manager in the Supply Department of Interbloc's London headquarters. You have been asked by the Finance Manager to write the following report: Terms of Reference: To investigate the range of photocopying equipment on the market in order to make recommendations for the purchase of new machines of the HQ offices. To establish the relative costs of renting, buying and leasing photocopying equipment and to make recommendations. You have begun your investigation. So far, you have assembled four pieces of information. Read through these four pieces of evidence (A, B, C and D) and answer any questions that come before or after each one. In deciding the relevance of some information, it is important to distinguish who it was written for. Was the following extract written for: photocopying equipment manufacturers? general readers? office supervisors? purchasers of photocopying equipment? ARTICLE FROM OFFICE EQUIPMENT SURVEY It is essential to get the correct machine for the volume that is required. In order to do this, it is necessary to obtain accurate estimates of the number of copies you make. A large proportion of companies who have replied to the Office Equipment Survey have not made proper estimates. The result is that they are running the wrong machine or are below minimum billing. We asked Charles Sands, a business equipment consultant, to suggest a simple method of checking copy costs. He told us, ‘First, establish the monthly cost of your machine as £x. Over three years this is, say, 3.3% of capital cost. For example, a machine purchased for £2,670 gives a monthly cost of £88. Alternatively, work out a figure based on your own financial method. Because of high maintenance costs, a formula of £x + 1.25p per copy is required so as to cover most machines. Taking a machine at £88 a month doing 7,000 copies, this works out at 2.5p per copy. Or, for 3,000, it equals 4.2p per copy. And then, of course, there’s the paper, too.’ You should be able to extract important details. Answer the following questions: What is most important when buying a photocopier? Why do many companies have the wrong machine? How much is it necessary to allow per copy above the cost of the machine? If the cost of a machine is £95 per month, what is the copy cost for 5,000 copies? The second piece of evidence is the typescript of an interview you had with Mrs Clarke, Office Supervisor in the Sales Department. During the interview, Mrs Clarke commented on the following aspects of the AX20 photocopier used in her office: speed situation breakdowns quality noise B. INTERVIEW WITH MRS CLARKE I: Mrs Clarke, I’d like some information about the AX20 photocopier used here in this office. For example, its efficiency ... suitability? C: The worst thing, as far as I’m concerned, is its position. It’s placed very close to my desk and it also blocks the filing cabinets. It’s very difficult for people ... I: I see. How long does it take to do a copy? C: I’m not sure exactly, but it’s extremely slow. And there always seem to be a lot of people waiting to use it. And more important, it’s always breaking down. I: Can you be more specific on that last point? C: I know the machine is unreliable because I had to call the engineer five times last month. I: Yes, that’s significant. What other disadvantages are there? C: Well, I feel it’s an extremely noisy machine... much noisier than the last one we had and the quality is not good either. U: The quality? C: Yes, according to my records, there were over 8% spoilt copies in June and nearly as many as that the month before... When deciding on the relevance of information, it is important to judge the value of opinions. Answer the following questions: In Mrs Clarke’s opinion, what is the most disadvantageous thing about the photocopier? What evidence does Mrs Clarke give for poor quality? What evidence does Mrs Clarke have for slow copy time? Which of the following pieces of information would it be useful to obtain from Mrs Clarke: personnel permitted to use the photocopier? type of documents photocopied? number of photocopies done per day? type of copy paper used? The next piece of evidence is much more factual. C. SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS REPORT MADE BY THE PURCHASING DEPARTMENT AT INTERBLOC HQ IN JULY 1978 The purpose of this report is to assess the relative costs of copy facilities based on different methods of payment. The methods examined are: Rental 2. Leasing 3. Buying The rate of rental depends on copy volume. On an AX20 at the minimum rate of 3,000 copies per month, the price is 2.9p per copy, excluding paper. At 10,000 copies a month, the rate is 1.75p. A total of £175. On five-year lease, the monthly charge, depending on tax relief, is approximately £44.13. In addition, 1.1p per copy is required for maintenance and service. On 3,000 copies, this amounts to £77.13 a month. On 10,000, it is £154.13. The capital cost of buying, after tax, is £1125.60. Over five years, that is £18.76 a month. Add running costs of 1.1p per copy and this gives a monthly total of £51.76 for 3,000 copies and £128.76 for 10,000. When leasing, what does the machine charge depend on? Which method gives the cheapest copy cost? What is the copy cost at 3,000 copies per month when buying? The forth piece of evidence has been provided by Mr Madson of the Accounts Department at Interbloc. It is a written statement of his views. While you are reading the statement, decide if Mr Madson is: putting forward an argument against renting? putting forward an argument against buying? putting forward an argument for leasing? putting forward an argument for renting? D MR MADSON ‘S STATEMENT The question of whether to lease, rent or buy is very complicated. It very much depends on the tax and cash position of a company. But one thing is clear; our present policy of buying is unwise. Because this type of equipment is constantly improving, it is necessary to make frequent changes. If you own a copier, you have to sell it. The trouble is that there is a very poor market for used machines. A secondary point is that Interbloc is a large company that does not need to build up its assets in this way or have a debt on the balance sheet. At the same time, the advantages of leasing have been overstated. Many companies have regarded leasing as a means of avoiding tax. In fact, it only postpones it. The company must face a tax bill in the end. The only way to avoid making payment is for the company to go on leasing at an increasing rate. What is Mr Madson’s principal argument against buying? What have many companies misunderstood about leasing? What causes companies to go on leasing at a higher level? Now look back at the terms of reference on page 6. Which of the following would you like to know more about? costs of renting, buying and leasing equipment the range of photocopying equipment on the market (Comfort, Revell, and Stott, 1984: 6-9) Besides, as students have experienced campus life and understand certain aspects of how a university is managed as an organization, the teacher can take advantage of these understandings to compensate for the lack of understandings about business organization management. Therefore, another option for practice exercises with business situation is to give students writing tasks that require them to write report on the management of the university. The common features of the two kinds of organization allow the practice of writing reports for management of business organizations to be partly replaced by the practice of writing reports for management of educational organizations. First, both kinds of organization face problems in operation, these management problems can be in finance, personnel, quality control, etc ... Secondly, both of them use similar systems of communication through documents. In English-speaking countries, where reports are more commonly used, reports for organizational managements have similar structures: statement of purpose, discussions of findings and recommendations and/or conclusions. Although universities do not have typical business context, the instructor can design exercise questions that make students try to use their experience and understanding to solve hypothetical problems on campus. The students with little or no working experience in a business will not have to write reports based on the vague understanding of the operations of businesses while still practice solving problems and presenting information. The following exercise is revised from a report writing exercise in Northey (1998) with some edition to make it familiar with the situation of Vietnamese universities. For example, the original exercise refers to cars as a popular means of transport; in this modified exercise motorbikes are used instead. This kind of exercise provokes students to use the provided content and students' available understanding of the university environment to analyze the problem and find out solutions to recommend. Besides providing students with what to write, the exercise also guides them to follow a process approach and to organizing information by giving instructions to draw an outline that use topical organization. The questionnaire survey suggests similar numbers of students appreciate practice exercises on campus situations and those on language exercises. Therefore, the teachers can consider giving the similar proportion of exercises on the two kinds of subjects.  Organizing Reports: Structuring Reports Assume that your university president has received many student complains about campus parking problems. You are appointed the chair of a student committee organized to investigate the problems and recommend solutions. The president gives you the file labeled “Parking: Complaints from Students,” and you jot down the essence of the complaints as you inspect the contents. Your notes look like this: Inadequate students spaces at critical hours Bicycles taking up full spaces Discourteous security officers Spaces (usually empty) reserved for university officials Relatively high parking fees Vandalism to motorcycles Inadequate total space Prepare an outline for a report to be submitted to committee members. Use a topical organization that categorizes this information. Source: Adapted from Northey, 1998. Figure IV-1: An Example of Report Assignment on Campus Topic IV.2.3. Other Exercises Other exercises include those on doing research, subject knowledge and business-related knowledge. These are not the focus of the course but can be considered as component skills for writing business reports and need to be developed together with language and writing skills. Because they do not deal much with English, it is easy to apply available exercises from books for business communication for native speakers. However, it is necessary to make some adaptations for the exercises fit into Vietnamese situations. The example that follows is an exercise in a book by the U.S., which is based on the U.S. economic environment: Finding Secondary Information Using online, database, or printed sources, find the following information. Be sure to properly cite your source, including the author’s name, the title, the name of publisher, the location and date of publishing, using the formats (…) [guided in the book] Contact information for the American Management Association Median weekly earning of men and women by occupation Current market share for Perrier water Performance ratios for office supply retails Annual stock performance for Hewlett-Packard Number of franchise outlets in the United States Composition of the U.S. workforce by profession (Bovee, 2001:333) Vietnamese students may be unfamiliar with items from a to f in the above exercise because they belong to the business environment of the United States. Furthermore, the original book was written for training business management students with higher emphasis on business skills including doing research, not on English. Therefore, the exercise is simplified and adjusted with the same questions but less items and some changes to suit the Vietnamese business environment. One rationale for these adjustments is that the course is taking place in Vietnamese situation and students can use their background understandings on the situation. Another reason is that most students will work in Vietnam and it is a responsibility of education to prepare for the most common needs with useful knowledge. The items suggested are: Composition of the Vietnamese workforce by economic activity Contact information for Kinh Do Corporation – Vietnam Main export markets of Vietnam National Tea Corporation (Vinatea) Annual stock performance for Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) IV.3. Managing errors It can be narrowed down from the literature in the first chapter that for the report writing exercises, giving assessing comments on how well the learners do the exercises should be combined with showing what is done rightly or wrongly. This kind of exercise aims at improving the writing skills and this can be done through giving honest assessment, both positive and negative. Again, this should be given with support and not with discouragement from the teacher. Giving percentage or grades to students’ paper in this case will not help much in showing the students what should be done in order to improve their business report writing. Therefore, assessment could be done through error correction. Error correction not only gives assessment but also provides evidences to what is wrong and what is right. The findings of the study suggest that teachers should try to point out all the possible errors by students. However, the purpose of error correction activities is to prevent students to repeat the error and it is not feasible to eliminate all the errors in one specific paper. Ur (1996:255) suggests that both positive and negative assessments should be made to learners, "as honestly as possible." However, to avoid discouraging learning, when showing the errors, the teacher should tries to make positive attitude and explain that the errors are natural and useful for learning. The important point is that those assessments must be given in a supportive and warm attitude, and the learners must feel that the teacher really want to promote learning not to put the learners down. As Ur (1996) suggested, we should balance our role of being a language instructor and a learning supporter. As an instructor, we are responsible to give correction for the errors; but over-correction will distract both learners and teachers, and discourage learning. As a principle, we should ignore some errors if the correction of them will “hinder learning more than help it.” Choosing what errors to correct and what not to correct and how to correct those errors are as much important. Because we should never expect language learners to create perfect language, it is not feasible that we can prohibit all kinds of errors. The teacher should see the errors that learners make in a positive view not negatively as a sign of failure because they are a useful way to show what is lack in the learners' competence. Also, many teachers experience the reoccurrence of the same errors, which means that there is a little improvement (Ur 1996: 255). Doff (1988: 194-195) notes that (1) the teacher could correct the most important errors only, (2) the teacher could reduce the amount of marking in the learner's work to avoid making it look badly written, and (3) the teacher could simply indicate where the learner made important errors and ask the learners to correct the errors themselves. IV.3.1. Correcting errors in content Content and meaning are important in communication, so it is necessary that students understand the message they want to convey. However, as the analysis of students' errors suggested, the reason for most errors of meaning is the lack of business understanding. These errors, therefore, can be avoided by providing clear, familiar and specific information in the question. The explanation of some business terms and the whole content of the exercise should be given, too, and students should be made familiar with the business activities involved. This can be done through giving group discussion tasks among students to clarify the task content. There should also be guide on what is expected from the particular exercise or task and in business world in general. Once the errors are already made, however, it is the matter of what should be done with them to prevent similar errors in future. If the error in content is due to the lack of understanding on the hypothetical situation, a strategy is to make clear of the content. Another kind is errors of meaning due to the wrong use of language items that fail to convey the correct meaning. Explanations or exercises on language use should be given in these cases. For example, a common mistakes of students writing business reports is using the word "Solutions" for the heading of recommendations, and they should understand that recommendations are proposed solutions to a problem which report writers sometimes suggest as good or useful things to do. IV.3.2. Correcting errors in organization Some errors in organization can be dealt with by using the checklist, which will be discussed in another section. For the errors that students fail to discover, the teacher has to point out and show students what is expected and why the students were wrong. He or she can add notes in the students' exercise papers to explain the expected logical order, parts that should be separate, the place where a transition is needed and the parts of the report that are relevant to the report's purpose. The task of writing report used for the error analysis of the writing samples can be taken as an example. For paper 24 that fails to obtain logical order of the parts (as described in the error analysis), it should be pointed out that the report should be organized in indirect organization rather than direct one because of the need to persuade the boss. Firstly, it should begin by introducing the purposes of finding the reasons for high employee turnover and giving recommendations for the issue, and then a discussion of findings should present three types of reasons with an appropriate order of popularity. Next, there should be recommendations on a more flexible work schedule and the providing of more part-time positions. The report can be concluded with a remark on high turnover and training costs to add more persuasion for the boss with a reputation of being against changes. There should be a clear separation among those parts and each part should begin with an introducing statement which is followed by the discussion. For other errors in organization, the teacher should also show the problem and what is expected instead of what is done. In general, understandings on discourse analysis are required to reinforce the students' skill of organizing the reports. IV.3.3. CORRECTING ERRORS IN PRESENTATION The errors due to misunderstanding between letter and memo forms can be avoided by the instructor's reminding of the situation. As discussed in the error analysis, a common error of presentation is the report having no or insufficient headings, and non-highlighted headings. This is because some students are not aware of the importance of headings in reports. The teacher's task is to raise this awareness by guiding them on where to put the headings and what headings should tell and how should headings be highlighted to stand out of the normal text. The example exercise on using report headings presented in IV.2.2. can be helpful in preventing this kind of error. IV.3.4. Correcting language errors Language errors include errors in grammar, vocabulary, orthography, sentence and style. As English writing teachers of other kinds often do, the teacher of writing business reports can use a system of symbols to show what kinds of language mistakes have been made, for example, Sp. for spelling, Gr. for grammar, ^ for the lack of a necessary word or phrase. Sometimes, a note is needed if the teacher thinks the students made a mistake because they are not aware of the rules. Finally, if the errors cannot be easily explained, the teacher can give suggestions for improvement directly. These errors can also be dealt with by students themselves. The following part discuss self-correction and peer-correction, which can be considered useful tools of giving feedback for students while reducing the work load for teachers. IV.3.5. Self-correction and Peer-correction Self-correction and peer-correction have been proved to reduce the load of work that the teacher of writing skills has to deal with. In process approach, the pre-writing, writing, and the post-writing can be completed by the students before handing in to the teacher. Students may feel discontented when they have to check their own paper or to have another students check it. The reason is they are not familiar with that their papers are not checked by the teacher but by their peers who they believe are of the similar language qualifications. However, self-correction and peer-correction serve several purposes at a time: to manage the paper load for the teacher as mentioned above, to provide students with a chance to improve their language in developing their ability to analyze and to create coordinative working among students so that stronger students can help weak ones. Peer-correction and self-correction can be applied with errors causing by carelessness of accuracy and orthography. This way allows students in the class to have enough practice with a lot of exercises being assigned and given feedback while the teacher does not have to read and respond all the exercises. Self-correction and peer-correction should be guided by a checklist that aims at checking overall correctness of the report writing exercises. One strong point of using checklist is the ability to find out a variety of errors at a time, so it not only save time for revising but also give students a view on the requirements of a well-written report. The checklist should include items that are easy to be judged, not abstract nor qualitative. One thing should be notice is that students may write their exam by hand, or type and print it from computer. The following checklist is recommended for both handwritten and printed students’ reports. The teachers can provide each student with a checklist for each report writing exercise so that students can use the checklist for checking the report written by themselves or by their partner in the pair. Checklist for Business Reports Presentation Is the report written in the right layout (memo or letter)? Do the main parts of the report have headings? Are headings, numbers, and bullets used appropriately? Does the report use tables and graphs as appropriate? Content Issues Is the purpose of the document introduced appropriately? Is all information correct (as expected)? Is the analysis covered sufficiently to allow the reader to follow your logic? Are facts and opinions clearly distinguished? Does the report contain sufficient components including a statement of purpose, a discussion of findings, and key points (conclusions and/or recommendations)? Organization Is the document ordered in a logical way? Are the parts of the document logically separated from each other? Do the subparts logically fit under this major part? Does the report have coherence? Does each paragraph and section show unity of purpose? Language Is the writing grammatically correct? Are the sentences verified and concise? Are the words precise in meaning? Is the document free of typographical errors or misspellings? Does the reports use correct punctuation and capitalization? Is the style appropriate? (formal, objective, factual, and impersonal) Figure IV-2: An Example of Checklist for Errors on Business Reports in English Part three Conclusions SUMMARY OF THE STUDY The study aims at finding more effective methods and strategies to overcome the difficulties in teaching students of English at Thang Long University to write business reports in English. First, it provides a review of previous documents in the field. Then, the study uses a questionnaire survey to find out the learners’ educational background and attitude to English language, their expectations of the course, and their evaluation on the teaching methodology. Finally, it analyzes learners’ sample assignments to find out common errors of meaning, organizational structure, presentation and language. Several important conclusions have been made. Firstly, it is viewed by the learners that to prepare the skills of writing business reports in English is necessary. It is also feasible because students are prepared with both English language and business knowledge. However, most students have never been involved in business activities. Therefore, the knowledge in business seems not enough, and students find a lot of difficulties with learning to find things about situations that they are not familiar with. The suggestions for teaching strategies include those that encourage effective presenting knowledge, practicing through exercises, and managing errors. These suggestions aim at facilitating students’ learning following a teaching process. The study focuses on finding practical strategies that can be applied in classroom activities and other activities when teaching to write business reports in English. Important implications for teaching can be in various fields, from combining different styles in presenting knowledge which encourage students reasoning activities, providing and analyzing sample reports, giving exercises on familiar topics to providing checklists to aid peer-correction and self-correction. In conclusion, the study tries to deal with a real demand on teaching ESP in the teaching context of Thang Long University. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH The analysis on the needs of English students in the field can provide a broader view on the course if combined with a course evaluation. In fact, course evaluation, as suggested by Dudley-Evans (1998), should be implemented continuously both during and at the end of the course so that some findings of evaluations will result in changes immediately in the course be in process. Other findings may bring in changes in longer terms. The study only deals with the problem from education perspective and may not be of sufficient view. That is why it is necessary to do researches from another angle of the labor market. Studies are needed to examine what kinds and how business reports in English are used in among Vietnamese workforce. This will help to design more focused courses on writing business reports in English in which requirements of successful business report are indicated to help students write better reports. This study suggests that a need for the writing skill of business report in English may also exists in students majoring in business because the labor market always need candidate with communication skills and reports are a popular tool of management. Therefore, there should be also analysis on the needs of communication in English as a foreign language among workforce with business degrees. The results of this research may suggest on whether and how to provide teaching to write business reports in English courses belonging to business degree programs. Also, the results of the study may be useful when combined with researches on local teaching contexts of other Vietnamese institutes and universities where similar English for Specific Purpose courses are provided.