Designing professionally oriented communicative situations for customs officers in the northwest border area.pdf

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
---------&&&---------
DESIGNING PROFESSIONALLY- ORIENTED COMMUNICATIVE
SITUATIONS FOR CUSTOMS OFFICERS
IN THE NORTHWEST BORDER AREA
(Nghiên cứu n t n u n o t p p v
n n p n o n ộ qu n ử u n
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01
HANOI, 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
---------&&&---------
DESIGNING PROFESSIONALLY- ORIENTED COMMUNICATIVE
SITUATIONS FOR CUSTOMS OFFICERS
IN THE NORTHWEST BORDER AREA
(Nghiên cứu n t n u n o t p p v
n n p n o n ộ qu n ử u n
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01
up rv sor r n u n
h ng u n
HANOI, 2019

i
DECLARATION
I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “ s n n prof ss on ll - oriented
communicative situations for customs officers in the Northwest border t ” is
the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at Vietnam National
University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any
other university or tertiary institution.
Hanoi, June 2019
Vu Thi Nga

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this study would have been impossible without the
enthusiastic assistance of many special and wonderful people.
First of all, I would like to express my great thankfulness to my supervisor,
Dr. Le Thi Hong Duyen for her extremely helpful advice and guidance as well as
her constant support during all stages of the study.
I also would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan –
Dean of the Post Graduate Studies Department, College of Foreign Languages,
Vietnam National University for his suggestions and support so that I could
complete my thesis in time.
My profound thanks also go to all staff in Ma Lu Thang border gate and Lai
Chau and Lao Cai customs office for their tremendous support in the collection of
data and information for my study.
This study has also been sponsored by North West Project 2018. Therefore, I
would like to send my sincere thanks to the board administrators and staff of the
Project for their valuable support.
My appreciation also goes to my relatives as well as my colleagues whose
understanding and sharing is invaluable to me in completing my thesis.
Finally, this thesis is the product of my long-term study, so I wish to express
my acknowledgement to other individuals who have indirectly contributed to the
completion of this thesis.
To all these people, I hope that the achievement of the thesis will be
favorable enough to satisfy their expectations.

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ABSTRACT
In the context of integration and globalization, English communication at
work has become an essential demand for occupations. Among them, customs
officers at the border gate also have opportunities to communicate with foreigners.
However, there seems to be a lack of studies regarding designing English materials
or courses for customs officers. Under initial exploration of such research gap, the
researcher conducted this study with the purpose to design the professional oriented
communicative situations for the customs officers at the Northwest border gate.
This study is conducted with the participation of 25 customs officers at Ma
Lu Thang, an important border gate of Lai Chau province. In this research, four
main data collection instruments are employed, namely questionnaires, observation,
semi-structured interviews, and document review. Besides, the researcher also
strictly followed the four main steps in designing communicative situation including
needs analysis, production, evaluation and adaptation. As a result, 50 specialized
English communicative situations were created according to 12 working domains.
Hopefully, this study yields in a practical and useful tool for customs officers and
also makes a significant contribution in confirming the reliability of the major steps
in the process of ESP materials development.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CNP : Communicative Needs Professor
C.O : Customs Officer
EAP : English For Academy Purposes
EOP : English For Occupational Purposes
ESP : English For Specific Purposes
LSA : Learning Situation Analysis
NA : Needs Analysis
PSA : Present Situation Analysis
TSA : English For Target Situation Analysis

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LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
Figure1.1. Procedures of materials development (Tomlinson, 2012)......................16
Figure 1.2. Adapted framework of procedures for materials development .............16
Figure 4.1. Difficulties in learning and training professional English.....................30
Tables
Table 1.1. TSA Framework (Songhori, 2008, p. 8)..................................................11
Table 3.1. Data collection procedures......................................................................24
Table 4.1. The needs for communication and mastery of specialized English ........27
Table 4.2. Information about the personnel working at Ma Lu Thang border gate.28
Table 4.3. Participants’ agreement on the use of main topics for “English
professionally oriented communicative situations for customs officers working at
the border gate”.........................................................................................................32
Table 4.4. Interview results of English communicative situations’suggestions ......34
Table 4.5. List of English professionally oriented communicative situations for
customs officers working at the border gate .............................................................35

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION....................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT............................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................. iv
LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES......................................................................v
TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................ vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................1
1. Rationale of the study ...........................................................................................1
2. Research aims and research questions...............................................................3
3. Scope of the study..................................................................................................3
4. Methods of the study.............................................................................................4
5. Significance of the study .......................................................................................4
6. Organization of the thesis.....................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................6
2.1. English for occupational purposes....................................................................6
2.2. Needs Analysis ....................................................................................................8
2.2.1. Target situation analysis..................................................................................10
2.2.2. Present needs analysis.....................................................................................11
2.3. ESP materials development.............................................................................12
2.3.1. ESP materials ..................................................................................................12
2.3.2. Principles of materials development ...............................................................14
2.3.3. Procedures for materials development............................................................15
2.4. Previous studies on ESP materials development...........................................16
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................18
3.1. An overview of the research site and the participants..................................18
3.1.1. Research site....................................................................................................18
3.1.2. The participants...............................................................................................20

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3.2. Data collection ..................................................................................................20
3.2.1. Data collection instruments.............................................................................20
3.2.2. Data collection procedures..............................................................................24
3.2.3. Data analysis ...................................................................................................25
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.................................................26
4.1. Communicative needs of customs officers at the border gate of Northwest
region........................................................................................................................26
4.1.1. The needs of English spoken communication.................................................26
4.1.2. The sections where English is required...........................................................28
4.1.3. Difficulties of customs officers in using English at work...............................29
4.2. Popular professional- oriented communicative situations ...........................32
4.2.1. Questionnaire data:..........................................................................................32
4.2.2. Interview data :................................................................................................33
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION...............................................................................38
1. Summary of the research results .......................................................................38
2. Implications of the study ....................................................................................39
3. Limitation of the study........................................................................................39
4. Future research directions .................................................................................40
REFERENCES........................................................................................................42
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... I
APPENDIX I.............................................................................................................. I
APPENDIX II...........................................................................................................V
APPENDIX III ......................................................................................................XII

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Vietnam is on the strongly international integration with lots of opportunities
and challenges, which requires the social workforce to attain qualification. It means
that employers need the proper proficiency in English language to make ends meet
for internationally integrated demand. In recent years teaching English language has
been more and more improved because many activities are organized effectively to
keep learners active and self-confident in communicatingEnglish. People are
focusing on developing English communicative skills in the work environment to
get better opportunities for promotion. Therefore, in the Northwest provinces, Lang
Son, Lao Cai, Ha Giang, designing English materials for border gate customs
officers who communicate with foreigners and read the documents is also important
since it became a useful device for trade, selling, tourism in the area containing the
economic border gate zone.
The English communication skills in the border zone can clearly play an
integral part in exchanging the defense cooperation or trading commodities tourism
and so on. The skillful lack of qualification in English for mutual communication
creates misunderstandings leading to conflicting unexpectedly. Moreover, there
have been few specialized English course books and suitable learning materials for
customs officers to enhance their professionally oriented communication. In
general, the advantages of practicing professionally oriented situations may be fully
utilized by customs officers to succeed in communicating with foreign partners in
the border gate, so the customs officers do not feel embarrassed to communicate
with foreigners as tourists and merchants
The Northwest Program is the concretization of the strategic policy of the
Vietnamese Party and State: considering Science and Technology as the primary
national policy to promote to the highest degree the intellectual resources and create
an impetus for the development of knowledge-based economy in the Northwest

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region, through the issues raised in the development realities of the region and of
each locality, raise production capacity and competitiveness, promote the
advantages, resources and potential, raising of overall growth level of the region
and bring about the practical benefits to the community of ethnic minority groups
living in the Northwest provinces. Participating in the project of the Northwest
program which was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the
researcher wishes to partially contribute to the development of Lai Chau province.
More and more travelers are now heading up into this part of the country, in
part due to the long-awaited opening of the border crossing into Laos near Dien
Bien Phu, Dien Bien province. Currently, the knowledge of a foreign language is
one of the basic requirements imposed by employers in most industries, including
the customs service. In this regard, the Customs Officer administration required an
English handbook aimed to improve the knowledge of this language for their
employees. Moreover, Lai Chau is in the affected region of the economic corridor
Kunming - Lao Cai - Ha Noi - Hai Phong. In the China territory, Yunnan Province
is a big market of goods consumption. The highway from Kunming to Kim Binh
town (38 km from the border-gate) is the favorable condition for Ma Lu Thang
border gate economic zone exploiting potential and opportunities for goods import
and export, travelling trade and services, participating in the exchange of goods
between Vietnam and China.
To ensure the implementation of national provisions on customs procedures,
inspection and supervision in export, import and temporary re-export; transit of
people and vehicles at the border in the province under the provisions of customs
legislation is required. To exploit the maximum potential advantages of the
province in the future, the Ministry of Education and Training deployed ULIS-VNU
to conduct a thorough program to improve the language competences of officers
working in the region.
All mentioned above, the researcher chose “designing professionally oriented
communicative situations for customs officers in the northwest border gate” in the
research dissertation.

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2. Research aims and research questions
This study aims to investigate English communicative needs of customs
officers in Ma Lu Thang northwest border area with a purpose of designing the
professionally oriented communicative situations. It means that an ESP material for
bettering the customs officers’ daily duties is developed to facilitate cross-border
communication. Therefore, the researcher utilized the thoroughly chosen strategies
to design the professionally oriented communicative situations for customs officers
In order to achieve this aim, the following objectives are established including
analyzing the needs of the customs officers in the Northwest border gate, the
problems faced by observing their real-life situations carefully.The research results
come out with suggested process for other authors to compose an English handbook
for other majors and a modification for the first version of the English handbook for
Northwest Customs Officers. The researcher also anticipates the effectiveness of the
use of the product in the working place of Customs Officers. The objectives can be
summarized by two research questions as follows:
✔ What are the English communicative needs of customs officers in
performing their duties in the border area?
✔ What are popular communicative situations related to their profession?
3. Scope of the study
As mentioned above, the focus of this study is only to select the English
commonly communicative situations for performing the customs officers’ duties at
the border gate of Lai Chau province. Currently, Lai Chau, which shares 273 km of
the borderline with China- bordering with Yunnan province in particular, has one
main Ma Lu Thang border gate. The Northwest Lai Chau province should be
exploited its strengths to invest and upgrade the infrastructure of the economic zone
of Ma Lu Thang needs to meet the demand for export and import and trading of
businesses and local people. However, the subjects of the study are only restricted
to twenty-five officers working at Ma Lu Thang border gate including six customs
officers.

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The study is carried out with a small scale. Nevertheless, within the
effectiveness of methods such as the document review, the practical observation and
participants’ interview at the border gate Phong Tho district in the Northwest, the
researcher examines the pilot situations partly considered as a useful material for
the customs officers.
4. Methods of the study
In this study, the English communicative situations for customs officers in
the border gate was introduced based on the theoretical framework and research
questions, the research site. In addition, data collection procedures and instruments
are described too. The research utilized data collection instruments complementarily
such as document review, observation, questionnaire and semi- structured interview
5. Significance of the study
Designing the professionally oriented communicative situations specifically
for Customs Officers shows the shortcomings of the utilization of these English
communicative situations in applying daily at work. Therefore, the author can
expect strategies for more practical English handbook with integrated situations.
The finding also benefits a large number of customs officers who desires to use the
handbook for self-study.
6. Organization of the thesis
This thesis consists of five chapters
Chapter one, introduction, presents the rationale, the research aims and
questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study and organization of
the thesis. This introductory part with some significant background issues
concerning the current study in the part two.
Chapter two, Literature Review, is concerned with a brief review of needs
analysis such as target situation analysis and presents situation analysis in learning
English. It also deals with a review of previous studies related to the problems under
investigation, a statement of unsolved problems and some theoretical knowledge.

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Chapter three, the research methodology, with the guide of the theoretical
framework and research questions, shows an overview of the research site where the
handbook of English communicative situations for customs officers in the border
gate was introduced but in the internal circulation. In this chapter, research
questions, instruments and data collection procedures are described too. It mentions
the methods are answered based on data collection and analysis.
In chapter four, Findings and Discussions, the results of the study will be
displayed. The findings of the study drawn from the research will be summarized
and presented. The study focuses on the process of designing the professionally
oriented English communicative situations occurring in the Northwest border area.
It also presents the statistical results from collected questionnaires and interviews.
Those are the daily language in the customs officers’ duties as well as difficulties
faced with by customs officers in learning English through the handbook of
professionally- oriented communicative situations.
Chapter five, the conclusion, addresses the key issues of the study and
summarizes the parts of the research, some limitations revealed during the process
of completing this research paper. Recommendations will be dealt with in this
chapter with some proposed suggestions for successfully communicative lessons. In
addition, further studies are recommended at the end.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews a number of relevant concepts and studies to the
present study. Since the purpose of this study is to design the professionally oriented
communicative situations for customs officers, the first section begins with the
review of development of English for specific purposes and the importance of
English for occupational purposes. Then, it is also necessary to view the theories
related to the core step in designing any ESP materials or ESP courses, that is
Needs Analysis. The next section focuses on the ESP materials development
including the concept of ESP materials, principles and procedures of materials
development. And finally, the related studies in the literature are reviewed to help
the researcher identify the research gap that the current study may fill in.
2.1. English for occupational purposes
Since its emergence in the 60s of the previous centuries, undergoing a lot of
controversies and development over the decades, English for specific purposes
(ESP), has grown to become a popular term and attracted a lot of attention from
researchers all over the world. Tracing back to its origin, it “was not a planned and
coherent movement, but rather a phenomenon that grew out of a number of
converging trends” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987, p. 6). Accordingly, three main
trends were identified by the two authors as the most affected to the emergence of
ESP. Firstly, it was the expansion of technology and commerce after the Second
World War with the advantageous economic status of the United States, which led
to the demand of learning English with clearly defined goals for surviving in the
international marketplace. Secondly, the revolution in linguistics at the same period
of time that shifted from a traditional way of studying language focusing on the
rules of English usage to the exploration of the ways English is used in various
situations of communication. This trend paved a new way in that “the English
needed by a particular group of learners could be identified by analyzing the
linguistic characteristics of their specialist area of work or study” (Hutchinson

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&Waters, 1987, p. 8). The rise of ESP was also accounted for achievements and
new developments within the field of educational psychology with its emphasis on
the learners and their learning attitudes. This had great influence on the orientation
of English courses towards learners’ needs so as to achieve teaching effectiveness.
Drawing on different definitions of ESP in the literature, Ibrahim’s (2010)
states that:
“Most of ESP definitions distinguish three themes: the nature of language
to be taught and used, the learners and the setting in which the other two
would occur. These three aspects of ESP are very much connected together.
ESP is the teaching of specific English (specialized discourse) to learners
(adults), who will use it, in a particular setting (business, engineer, medical
field, science, etc.) in order to realize a practical purpose.” (p. 202)
Along with the growing demand of English for various purposes, ESP today
“is more vibrant than ever with a bewildering number of terms created to fit the
increasing range of occupations that have taken shelter under the ESP umbrella”
(Brunton, 2009, p. 8). Although it is generally agreed that ESP is divided into two
main areas, namely English for Academic purposes (EAP) and English for
occupational purposes (EOP) with the former focusing on academic settings and the
later referring to the situations where learners study English for work related
reasons, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) contend that there is not clear-cut
distinction between EAP and EOP because “people can work and study
simultaneously; it is also likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate
use in a study environment will be used later when the student takes up, or returns
to, a job” (p. 16). Through such claim, it can be seen that for ESP, the use of
English at the target situations seem to be the most preferred concern.
Nowadays, in the context of English as a lingua franca, EOP seems to gain
more and more important status. To emphasize the importance of EOP, Huhta et al.
(2013) even suggest that the direction of ESP should be “towards training in

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communication for professional purposes in which the foreign language arises”
(p.51). As compared to the early day of ESP, the number of specific purposes or
different disciplines is more and more increasing, covering “ever-diversifying and
expanding ranges of purposes” (Belcher, 2006, p. 134) in different areas such as
business, law, construction, finance, banking, accountancy, chemistry, marine,
navy, etc. It seems that with the trend of globalization and international integration,
it raises the demand for using English for different occupations.
According to recent points of view regarding EOP, English is not just the
medium for general communication but also a tool for people in different
workplaces to perform typical tasks of their field. Depending on specific purposes
that each discipline may hold, the required tasks and functions at each working
setting may not be the same, depending on typical discourse of its field. Teaching
EOP courses or designing EOP materials, therefore, should gear towards the
performance of such tasks.
2.2. Needs Analysis
When it comes to ESP courses, needs analysis is considered as the first and
foremost step to be conducted because such courses are to serve specific needs of a
group of learners. Based on the typical characteristic of ESP as “goal-directedness”
(Robinson, 1991), when designing ESP materials, it should also be directed to the
needs of the users.
From the early days, needs analysis was mainly focused on linguistics and
register analysis to identify the typical grammar structures or vocabulary used for
each discipline. With the publication of the book entitled “Communicative Syllabus
Design”, Munby (1978) brought about the idea of function and situation as
important aspects in needs analysis. His proposal of “Communicative Needs
Processor” (CNP) in the book was highly appreciated by ESP researchers and
practitioners that “it seemed as if ESP had come of age” (Hutchinson & Waters,
1987, p. 54). Despite its great impact for later works on needs analysis and course
design, Munby’s list of microfunctions in his CNP was then criticized for being

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“inflexible, complex and time-consuming” (West, 1994, p. 9) and only captured the
viewpoint of the needs analyst and excluded the views of the important others such
as the learners and the institutions. Subsequently, Hutchinson and Waters (1987)
attempted to supplement such framework with the distinction of target/product-
oriented needs (requirement in the target situation) and learning/ process-oriented
needs (learning conditions and learners’ existing skills and knowledge). With the
development of ESP, the concept of needs analysis has become more complicated.
Drawing on such different types of needs, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998)
synthesizes all the aspects from different existing approaches into categories of
information that the needs analyst should determine as follows:
A. professional information about the students: the tasks and activities students
are/will be using English for-target situation analysis (TSA) and objectives needs
B. personal information about the students: factors which may affect the way
they learn such as previous learning experiences, reasons for attending the course
and expectations of it, attitude to English-wants, means subjective needs
C. English language information about the students: what their current skills
and language use are- present situation analysis (PSA)-this could allow us to assess
(D). PSA determines strengths and weakness in language skills.
D. the students’ lacks: the gap between (C) and (A)-lacks
E. language learning information: effective ways of learning skills and
language in (D)-learning needs-Learning Situation Analysis (LSA)
F. knowledge of how language and skills are used in target situation-
linguistic analysis, discourse analysis and genre analysis.
G. students’ needs from the course: what is wanted from the course?
H. environmental situation: information about the environment in which the
course will be run-means analysis
(Dudley-Evans &St John, 1998, p.125)
In this study, in order to meet the purpose of designing a professionally
oriented communicative situations for customs officers, the analysis of needs will

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focus on two aspects namely target situation analysis (TSA) and present situation
analysis (PSA).
2.2.1. Target situation analysis
In terms of target situation analysis, Hutchinson and Water (1987) claim that
it is “in essence a matter of asking questions about the target situation and the
attitudes towards that situation of various participants” (p.59). Those questions are:
(1) Why is language needed?
(2) How will the language be used?
(3) What will the content areas be?
(4) Where will the language be used?
(5) When will the language be used?
It is suggested that in order to see deeply into the requirements or demands
of the situations where the learners are going to perform real tasks, the course
developers and the material designers need to seek answers for the above questions
and link them to their designed courses or check the relevance of the designed
materials to such situations. In other words, it is important to focus on the
“necessities” in the target situations.
In a review of needs analysis, Songhori (2008) has summarized the TSA
framework as follows:

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Table 1.1.TSA Framework (Songhori, 2008, p. 8)
1. Why is language needed?
• for study;
• for work;
• for training;
• for a combination of these;
•for some other purposes, e.g. status, examination,
promotion
cf. Munbian
purposive domain
2. How will the language be used?
• Medium: speaking, writing, reading, etc.;
• Channel: e.g. telephone, face to face;
• Types of text or discourse: e.g. academic text,
lectures, catalogues, etc.
cf. Munbian
instrumentality
3. What will the content areas be?
• Subjects: e.g. medicine, biology, commerce, shipping,
etc.;
• Level: technician, craftsman, postgraduate, etc.
cf. Munbian
Communicative event
4. Where will the language be used?
• Physical setting: e.g. office, lecture theater, hotel,
workshop, library;
• Human context: alone, meetings, demonstrations, on
telephone;
• Linguistic context: e.g. in own country, abroad.
cf. Munbian
Setting (physical and
psychological)
5. When will the language be used?
• Concurrently with the ESP course or subsequently;
• Frequently, seldom, in small amounts, in large chunks.
Depending on specific situations, the course developers and the material
designers should take into account those details mentioned in the framework so as
to design a suitable course or suitable materials which practically meet the needs of
the learners.
2.2.2. Present needs analysis
If the target situation analysis focuses on what the learners expected to be
able to perform after the course, the present needs analysis is mainly about the
assessment of the starting point of the learners. In other words, “a PSA estimates
strengths and weaknesses in language, skills and learning experience” (Dudley-

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Evans & St John, 1998, p.125). This term also refers to the “lacks” which is
proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) indicating what the learners have
already known.
The term “Present needs analysis” (PSA) was first introduced by Richterich
and Chancerel (1980). According to them, in order to dig into the present situation
of the learners, it is important to seek for a range of background information such as
years of learning English, level of education which can give some initial prediction
about the present abilities of the learners. In some cases, placement tests can also be
one of the ways to obtain information about the learners at their starting point.
In fact, up to now, in order to do a holistic analysis of needs, the analysts
should also take into accounts the other types of analysis such as means analysis,
deficiency analysis, strategy analysis, etc. However, it can be said that PSA and
TSA have become the main components of needs analysis, although “within the
realm of ESP, one cannot rely either on TSA or PSA as a reliable indicator of what
is needed to enhance learning and reaching the desired goals” (Songhori, 2008,
p.10)
2.3. ESP materials development
In this section, the concept of materials in general and ESP materials in
particular are discussed first. Then, some principles of materials development are
mentioned to provide the background for the development of the English handbook
for customs officers.
2.3.1. ESP materials
Generally speaking, materials play an important role in language teaching.
Materials can be defined as “anything which is used to facilitate the learning of a
language, including coursebooks, videos, graded readers, flash cards, games,
websites and mobile phone interactions” (Tomlinson, 2012, p.143). Obviously, the
core materials are usually in the form of paper-based ones. However, nowadays,
there are also other supplementary types of materials as mentioned above.

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Tomlinson (2012) proposes that the materials can be instructional,
experiential, eliciting or exploratory. Accordingly, materials are instructional in the
way they inform the learners about the language. The “experiential” aspect refers to
the exposure to the language in use that the materials provide. Materials can also be
eliciting when they stimulate the use of language. And finally, materials are
exploratory as they tend to help learners discover the language use in natural
settings.
What makes materials in general different from ESP materials is that ESP
materials seem to orient itself to learners’ needs analysis. While in general teaching,
teachers can use ready-made materials which suit the learners’ level of proficiency,
in ESP teaching, the teachers are mainly designer and provider of materials.
Normally, ESP teachers can also choose the available one but adapt it and
supplement it in order to suit the learners’ needs. Teachers can adapt it by deleting,
adding, modifying, reordering, simplifying. Another point that should be discussed
here is the authenticity of ESP materials. Such authentic materials can help learners
have clearer imagination of their tasks they perform at their workplace. It is true to
what Offord-Gray and Alfred (1998) suggest that the materials need not just to
focus on making the language explicit but also provides a means or a tool for them
to engage in the process of reconstruction.
When discussing about ESP materials, it is also important to mention about
the authenticity of the materials. While it is strongly advocated that ESP materials
should be as authentic as possible, there is still a strong debate that authentic
materials are not authentic anymore when they are put in the classroom context, not
real-life context. To this point, Lesiak- Bielawska (2015) summarizes that “the issue
of authenticity not only manifests itself in text authenticity but also encompasses
other facets...include authenticity of competence, learner authenticity and
authenticity of classroom” (p. 10). Therefore, depending on different contexts and

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different learners, the materials writers should select or adapt the materials to
different aspects of authenticity.
In terms of the purpose for using materials, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998)
highlights four main reasons namely (1) as a source of language, (2) as learning
support; (3) for motivation and stimulation and (4) for reference. Sharing the same
point of view, Hyland (2006) also proposes four principal functions of ESP
materials, which are (1) to assist learners’ understanding of language use, (2) to
serve as models with representative samples of correct language use in different
contexts of work and study, (3) enhance learners’ creativity, planning and
engagement; (4) to provide reference source of materials. In another review of key
aspects of ESP materials selection and design, Lesiak- Bielawska (2015) highlights
that the main objective of ESP materials is “to expose learners to real language as it
is used in a range of professional and/or academic settings” (p. 5). Apart from that,
Tomlinson (2016) adds that “ideally materials should be developed for learning
rather than for teaching” (p.2).
It can be inferred from the above points that any materials for both ELT and ESP
should be designed with certain purpose and based on underlying principles. The
following section will clearly present the points.
2.3.2. Principles of materials development
When mentioning about materials development, Alan Maley (2016) specially
highlights the background of materials and states that “materials do not exist in a
vacuum. They are part of the whole context of language learning, including the
philosophical and belief-systems of stakes holders” (p.11). Such proposition means
when developing materials, the writers/designers should take the language using
context of the materials into account.
In a review of Hidalgo et al (1995), some principled approaches to materials
development were stated by some writers from South-East Asia based on their
observation of the process of learners learning language. Lateron, Tomlinson (1998)
proposes 15 principles for materials development, which were built from the
theories of language acquisition. In his paper in 2009, Tomlinson once again

15
confirms some main principles underlying the development of materials. He
suggested that:
“...materials should not be random recreations from repertoire nor craft
clones of previously successful materials. Instead, they should be coherent
and principled applications of (1) theories of language acquisition and
development; (2) principles of teaching; (3) our current knowledge of how
the target language is actually used; (4) the results of systematic observation
and evaluation of materials in use” ( omlinson, 2009, p.45)
Based on such proposition and the proposed 15 principles, he strongly claims about
the six important ones as follows:
The materials should:
· Expose the learners to language in authentic use
· Help learners to pay attention to features of authentic input
· Provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language toachieve
communicative purposes
· Provide opportunities for outcome feedback
· Achieve impact in the sense that they arouse and sustain the learners’ curiosity and
attention
· Stimulate intellectual, aesthetic and emotional involvement
(Tomlinson, 2009, p.46)
Although different principles have been articulated, the aforementioned ones seem
to drive the development of any materials.
2.3.3. Procedures for materials development
Similar to the principles of materials development, there are also a number of
reported procedures for developing materials. According to Tomlinson (2012),
materials development is both “a field of study and a practical undertaking” (p.144).
As “a field of study”, it focuses on the procedures of the design, implementation
and evaluation of language teaching materials. Whereas, as “a practical
undertaking”, it studies the production, evaluation and adaptation of the materials.

16
Figure 1.1. Procedure of materials development (Tomlinson, 2012)
Since the purpose of this study is to design professionally oriented
communicative situations for customs officers, this should be identified as a
practical understanding, rather than a field of study. However, the procedures
suggested above seem to be the overall guideline for materials writers to follow.
Moreover, it did not mention the needs analysis stage, which is also very important
to ESP materials. Therefore, in this study, the researcher chose to modify the
framework and conducted materials development according to the following stages:
Figure 1.2. Adapted framework of procedures for materials development
2.4. Previous studies on ESP materials development
Since English for occupational purposes has become a recent trend in
teaching and learning English, it is understandable that a lot of studies related to
professionally oriented courses and materials development have been conducted.
Regarding ESP materials development, most studies found in the literature reported
about the importance of needs analysis in designing ESP courses and materials
which meet the needs of specific groups of learners such as nursing, engineering,
business, law and so on.

17
For example, in the hope of designing a speaking syllabus and textbook for
nursing students who are going to work in hospitals overseas, Sismiati, Latief and
Adnan (2012) conducted two needs surveys with the first one at five nursing
schools in Indonesia and the second needs analysis at three hospitals in New
Zealand. With the in-depth analysis of needs from the perspectives of different
stakeholders, the authors identified what should be included in their coursebook,
which satisfies their learners.
In another context of Saudi Arabia, a group of researchers (Javid et al, 2015)
also conducted a comprehensive needs analysis research project including the
opinion of 794 students and 40 faculty members from different medical colleges in
this country. The data collected questionnaires, interviews and observations were
triangulated to shed light on the genuine needs for medical students. From such
holistic needs analysis, they built up the course content and successfully piloted the
course at one college. From their study, they strongly advocated that a
comprehensive needs analysis is needed for designing in-house teaching materials.
Also regarding the use of needs analysis in designing an ESP coursebook,
Chen (2008) reported on a study conducted with a group of architects and civil
engineers in China. In this study, the trainers who were asked to design a
coursebook for English training program for such construction professionals,
investigated and analyzed the needs of the trainees and used the results from needs
analysis to build up suitable materials for the training course. The same focus on
needs analysis while developing ESP materials can be seen in many other studies
(Ibrahim, 2015; Hussein, 2016; Widijantie & Handayani, 2018).
Interestingly, such studies mentioned above mostly focus on developing or
designing learning materials for ESP courses, i.e. to use in ESP classes rather than
in practical situations of a workplace. Therefore, there is a lack of studies focusing
on designing materials for professionals to use at work.
In the search of studies on ESP material development for customs officers in
both local and global contexts, it seems that this group of learners has not been paid

18
much attention. Studies aimed at this type of target learners seem to be rarely
evident in the literature.
With the big gap identified in the literature as mentioned above, it calls for the
necessity of designing materials for customs officers as a reference and a resource
of learning on themselves at their workplace.
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter is stated with the purpose of discussing the methodology used to
implement the research after reviewing a theoretical basis for the study in the
previous part. The researcher describes the methodology investigating the English
communicative needs of customs officers while doing their duties in the border area
and designing the most popular communicative situations related to their profession
at Ma Lu Thang border gate in Phong Tho district, Lai Chau province. The nature
and the desired results of the proposed study entailed the choice of research tools
such as observation, questionnaire, semi-structured interview and document review.
The chapter consists of the main contents, namely, an overview of the research
setting, the participants and data collection and analysis methods.
3.1. An overview of the research site and the participants
3.1.1. Research site
Mentioning Lai Chau, it can be thought of a Northwest border province of
the country, which is rather attractive because it is characterized as distinctive
features of nature and geographical site.
Lai Chau has a natural area of 9,068 square kilometers with a population of
about 471.000, consisting of Lai Chau city and seven different districts, over 450
km southeast of Hanoi. It is bordered to China's Van Nam province to the North and
Northwest, Dien Bien province to the west, and Lao Cai and Yen Bai provinces to
the east and southeast, and Son La province to the south. It is the neighborhood of

19
Van Nam province, China that brings certain benefits of economics as well as
tourism for this mountainous one like Lai Chau.
The border distance between Lai Chau and China stretches 265,165km. Four
border districts of Lai Chau including in Phong Tho, Sin Ho, Nam Nhun and
Muong Te are contiguous to three border districts of China's Van Nam province
such as Kim Binh, Giang Thanh and Luc Xuan. Therefore, Lai Chau province has
many unmarked line, trail as well as opening and especially one customs
department at Ma Lu Thang national border gate in Phong Tho district with the
purpose of ensuring the execution of State provisions on customs procedures,
inspection and customs supervision of exports, imports and temporary imports for
re-exports, human and vehicle transit at border crossings. When the State's policies
on trade, investment, export and import tax come into force, together with the
entrance of Vietnam Customs into the World Customs Organization, which has led
to the activities of Vietnamese Customs in general and Dien Bien Customs in
particular developing into a new phase. The regime of import-export management
has been changed fundamentally, commercial activities in the province of Dien
Bien, Lai Chau and Son La are flourishing with emergence of various types of
import and export such as investment, trading, temporary import.
Moreover, Lai Chau is blessed with the captivating poetic landscapes by the
Mother Nature, such as O Quy Ho mountain pass, Pu Sam Cap cave, Love waterfall
and many distinctively cultural features of twenty ethnic minorities. Besides, Lai
Chau is beneficiary thanks to the expressway from Quang Dong to Van Nam
province, China through Viet Nam with starting point from Quang Ninh- Hai
Phong- Ha Noi- Lao Cai. The expressway linking to Lai Chau is on duty, which
creates golden chances for commercial exchange as well as tourism because Lai
Chau is an attractive medial point between Sa Pa- a famous destination and Dien
Bien- a historical site. As a result, Ma Lu Thang border gate is also a center of
commercial exchange and a destination for tourists because it is only 20km far away
from route 4D connecting route 12 leading to Dien Bien province. Obviously,

20
customs officers in Ma Lu Thang border gate have the advantages as well as
challenges to meet the needs of work.
In brief, by the above strengths, both Vietnam and China have proposed Ma
Lu Thang border gate considered as an importantly international border gate.
3.1.2. The participants
With a variety of advantages of a border-gate province, customs officers
need necessary skills as well as qualifications to meet workplace requirements,
especially in the globally economic integration. It is important for the customs
officers to obtain required certificates or English communicative skills for the
professional customs in performing customs officers’ duties. Thus, the researcher
aims to explore how customs officers describe or feel about specific communicative
situations in English language in order to easily assess the impact of English
language in a particularly professional customs workplace appropriately. Moreover,
the participants may need necessary materials such as professionally oriented
communicative situations, from which the participants can master relevant
vocabulary to better their tasks.
The total number of customs officers at Ma Lu Thang border gate in
Phong Tho district, Lai Chau province consists of twenty-five participants. This
border-gate agency is divided into five administrative departments such as the
border guards, customs office, economic department, quarantine board and
permanent immigration crew. The administrative department of customs office
only consists of six members in particular.
3.2. Data collection
3.2.1. Data collection instruments
The four main instruments utilized in the collection of the data for this study
are document review, observation, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews
These data instruments complemented properly to gain the purposes of the study.
3.2.1.1. Document review

21
In this study, the researcher used document review as one of the main
instruments to facilitate the production of communicative situations. Some major
contents and questions in the designed situations are compiled according to a list of
frequently asked items provided by a department of customs administration. In
addition, several situations are collected based on the contents of the book “English
for custom training materials” published by Vietnam Customs School, which
contains a variety of specialized vocabulary and specific fields of customs sector
enabling the officers to perform their duties efficiently at the border-gate areas.
However, there is a truly scarce of customs documents in the book-market and the
pamphlets of customs procedures as well. Even in Vietnam Customs School, there
is not any officially English specialized professors or teachers in regarding to the
customs procedure, mainly customs officers with high-level English qualification
are utilized to work as teachers. The coursebook “English for customs training”
published by Vietnam Customs School in August 2017 is a main material which is
not communicative situations related to the customs procedure.
In addition to that, the websites of the Provincial Customs Administrations
and the General Department of Vietnam Customs are also utilized as useful
reference sources. It gives the researcher a chance to acknowledge the perspectives
of situation-based customs procedures as well as possible suggested solutions
supporting of designing the dialogues.
3.2.1.2. Observations
According to the sixth edition “Research Method in Education” by Louis
Cohen, Lawrence Manion and Keith Morrison (2007), “the observational research is
defined as the method of viewing and recording the actions and ongoing behaviors
of participants”. In this study, the researcher observed the customs officers
performing their duties with their partners such as merchants, people and tourists as
well as the customs environment. From the collected data, the research attains the
full investigation for the specialized domains and situations that the participants
have to cope with in their profession. In addition to that, the researcher also expects
to know more supplementary possibilities related to the customs procedures.

22
Through the observation combining with the questionnaire's feedback, the
researcher obviously finds out some of these specialized plot situations and
understand more precisely the popular English language communicative situations
related to their profession, which are utilized in customs officers’ ongoing
performance. At the same time, it is an observed fact that the customs officers
working at the border gate have trouble in communicating the popular dialogues
related to the customs procedures in many various situations.
3.2.1.3. Questionnaire
The questionnaire was used as the first instrument (see Appendix I). It is an
obvious fact that questionnaires save time and effort for both researchers and
participants because Gillham (2000) assumes that a wide range of advantages of
questionnaires can be listed as saving time and money, easy to get information from
a lot of people very quickly. It was employed since it is considered as a suitable
instrument in collecting data in this study. Moreover, the anonymity of the
participants and all their confidential answers can encourage customs officers to
share their points of view and learning experiences without any pressure.
Purposes of the questionnaire is namely to collect the customs officers’ needs
in using English communicative situations of performing their duties at the border
gates and to explore the possible situations regarding the twelve domains provided
by the provincial customs administration. The questionnaire was given to twenty-
five participants in Ma Lu Thang border gate.
The questionnaire was designed with two parts, namely the personal
information or the customs officers’ background, learning experience (Part 1: item
from 1 to 5) and the questions related to specialized fields as well as the customs
officers’ major needs in using English communicative situations of performing their
duties effectively at the border gates. The second part consists of eight questions in
order to get specific information about their English language training background,
their current English proficiency, and occupational requirements regarding the use
of English to communicate with foreigners at their workplace (from item 1 to item

23
8). Before filling in the questionnaire, the participants were given a brief and clear
explanation about the aim of the questionnaire. It is the usage of the questionnaire
that the researcher can clearly find out the English communicative needs of customs
officers in performing their duties in the border area. The collected data from this
questionnaire give the answer to the first research question of the study.
3.2.1.4. Interviews
In terms of interview, it is a purposeful conversation between two or more
people, requiring the interviewer to establish rapport, to ask concise and
unambiguous questions, to which the interviewee is willing to respond and listen
attentively (Saunders et al, 2009). Another significant factor that should be paid
attention to is the friendly and pleasant atmosphere to encourage the respondents to
express and share the information about the customs procedures and trade related
documents.
In this research, semi-structured interviews (See Appendix II) are conducted to
explore a deep insight into the research problem from the perspective of those
customs officers after the researcher gained their permission along with the
confirmation of interviews’ confidentiality. By using semi-structured interview, the
researcher can explore the participants’ ideas more deeply by asking questions and
recording their answers at a time (Creswell, 2012).
After selecting a list of common situations from the questionnaire responses
and the document review, the researcher started to conduct the interview with six
the participants in the customs department of Ma Lu Thang border gate in order to
ask the possibly current situations and confirm the reliability and appropriateness of
the chosen situations. The dialogues on twelve domains’ situations were repeated
similarly in the six interviews with six customs officers so as to explore the popular
questions. Based on the interview, the research created a list of themes, mainly the
specialized questions relating to the twelve different fields and possibly some key
suggestions to be covered as well. At the same time, the researcher created a chance
to acknowledge the current ways and problems of using the situation-based English

24
language for Customs Officers as well as suggested solutions. The interviews were
conducted in the form of informal recorded talks. All of them are carried out in
Vietnamese in the customs officers’ workplace in order to ensure that data were
collected at the interviewees’ ease.
3.2.2. Data collection procedures
Utilizing the data collection instruments aforementioned, the researcher conducted
the research according to the following procedures:
Table 3.1. Data collection procedures
Stages Data collection
Instruments
Outcomes
1.Needs
Analysis
- Questionnaire
- Observation
- Document review
- Level of English proficiency of the
participants
- Their needs of using English at work
- A list of common working domains
2. Production - Semi-structured
interviews
- Document review
- Suggestions for tentative
communicative situations in details
3. Evaluation - Feedback of linguistic
experts
- Feedback of customs
specialists
First draft of communicative situations
4. Adaptation - Feedback of the
customs officers
Final communicative situations
As displayed in the above table, firstly, in the stage of needs analysis, survey
questionnaires were delivered to all participants at Ma Lu Thang border gate. From
the questionnaire responses, the researcher can identify the level of English
proficiency of the customs officers and some other information about their needs of
using English at work. At the same time, observation in their real working
environment helped the researcher to note down the common situations. Also, the
researcher utilized a list of frequently asked items provided by the provincial

25
customs administration. As a result, a list of common communicative situations was
produced.
In the second stage, the researcher interviewed six the customs officers of
customs administration at Ma Lu Thang border gate in order to ask for their
suggestions for proper or improper domains as well as their related situations.
Simultaneously, the customs officers can check if those officers used selected
situations or not and explored possible interactions within each situation. Moreover,
the researcher also took advantage of the documents from the book entitled
“English for custom training materials” compiled by Vietnam Customs School as
well as the websites of different customs departments. At the end of this phase, pilot
communicative situations were created.
For the third stage of evaluation, the pilot situations were sent to linguistic
experts and customs specialists in order to obtain their feedback for modification.
In the final stage, the modified version of the communicative situations was
delivered to obtain final feedback from the customs officers at Ma Lu Thang
border gate.
The study was implemented under the help of the customs officers at Ma Lu
Thang border gate in Phong Tho district, Lai Chau province. The procedures for
data collection of the study were carried out in successive weeks.
3.2.3. Data analysis
In this research dissertation, the collected data from the differently well-
complemented instruments were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. In
particular, the questionnaires were analyzed by utilizing Excel in order to figure out
the percentage of participants’ responses regarding different aspects in the survey.
Besides, the observed data, semi-structured interviews and documents analysis were
interpreted qualitatively with the purpose of selecting and designing appropriate
communicative situations.

26
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Based on the data collection and analysis procedures, the researcher
managed to find out remarkably significant research findings helping answer the
research questions identified at the beginning. In this chapter, the research
questions are revisited in order to shed light on the major findings of the study
regarding the English communicative needs of customs officers in performing their
duties in the border area, and popular communicative situations related to their
profession, based on discussing the results from the four main stages including
needs analysis, production, evaluation and adaptation.
4.1. Communicative needs of customs officers at the border gate of Northwest
region
4.1.1. The needs of English spoken communication
At Ma Lu Thang border gate, the researcher contacted all the customs
officers or called participants who always perform their daily duties there, in which
the number of participants is twenty- five. In terms of their English qualifications,
only six participants receive the certificate A1. All the participants took part in the
survey by responding to the questionnaires objectively.
In order to specify the needs of English communication of the customs
officers at Ma Lu Thang border gate, the researcher delivered a questionnaire to
them and arrived at their working place for observation.
All the items in the questionnaire are written in Vietnamese to be easily
understood by the customs officers. In case some of the participants may
misunderstand the questions’meanings or have any difficulty, the researcher has
provided them with the telephone numbers and email address to contact. At the same
time, the researcher also asks for some essential documents as well as how to contact
them effectively and some other ways during the implementation of the survey.
Having observed the officers performing their duties at work, the researcher
noted down that English was mostly used in their comprehension of the customs
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27
procedure documents. Some officers also had the chance to communicate
with foreign customers. This reflected the fact that English is currently used in their
professional performance. It is also demonstrated clearly in the below table:
The detailed results are displayed in the following table with two specific questions
in the questionnaire:
Table 4.1. The needs for communication and mastery of specialized English
Items Contents Answers
Participants
(customs officers)
Item 1
What foreign languages are
frequently used at the border gate?
English 21/25 84%
Chinese 25/25 100%
Item 2.1
Do you need to use English in
your current professional tasks?
Yes 9/25 36%
Yes, but not
frequently.
12/25 48%
No 4/25 16%
Item 2.2
If yes, what specific purposes do
you use English for?
Communicate
with foreigners
10/25 40%
Give directions
or noticeboard
19/25 76%
Comprehend
related
documents
21/25 84%
Item 2.3
If no, do you think English is
necessary for performing your
duties in the future when there are
more opportunities for integration?
Yes, of course 25/25 100%
As mentioned in the table above, although Chinese is considered as a more
widely used foreign language (100%), English is still regarded as a frequently used
one (84%).
In terms of English usage for professional purposes (Item 2), 21/25 participants
confirmed their use of English, in which 9 officers stated that they often used English at
work and 12 people said that they also used English but not frequently. Only 4 officers
claimed that they did not find chance to use English in their job. However, those people
agreed that English is necessary in the future (Item 2.3).
For those who used English to fulfill their tasks, their purposes of English
usage varied including communicating with foreigners (40%), giving directions and
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28
notice boards (76%) and comprehending professionally concerned documents
(84%).
In the context of regional and international commercial exchanges as well as
integration, the need of communicating specialized-English language fluently has
become extremely essential for customs officers at the border gate of Northwest
region. In such working environment, many opportunities of trading activities keep
ongoing among internal and external businessmen, tourists and customs officers.
Thanks to recognizing the importance of English language as a trading and
exchange device in the working environment, the majority of those customs officers
stated in the questionnaire that they have a great desire to master English as a means
of communication for supporting daily tasks’ performance so as to improve working
efficiency, partly contribute to border gate economic development in the future.
4.1.2. The sections where English is required
As mentioned before, the research has been conducted at Ma Lu Thang
border gate in Phong Tho district, 50 kilometers from Lai Chau city, Lai Chau
province. Totally twenty-five participants work for different administrative offices
in this border-gate agency such as the border guards, customs office, economic
department, quarantine board and permanent immigration crew resolving
immigration issues. The number of officers working in each office is demonstrated
in the table below:
Table 4.2. Information about the personnel working at Ma Lu Thang border gate
Administrative offices
(number of officers)
Officers
using English
Officers not
using English
Border guards (12) 8 4
Customs office (6) 6 0
Economic department (2) 2 0
Quarantine board (2) 2 0
Permanent immigration crew (3) 3 0
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