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DIFFICULTIES FACE VIETNAMESE STUDENTS WHO USE WESTERN

TEXTBOOKS: AN INVESTIGATION

Research · November 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21073.43367

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DIFFICULTIES FACE VIETNAMESE STUDENTS WHO USE
WESTERN TEXTBOOKS: AN INVESTIGATION

NGUYEN MINH TRANG,

TESOL
Lecturer of English,
Binh Duong University, Vietnam.

ABSTRACT
This study aims to investigate difficulties Vietnamese students faced
when using commercial textbooks. A qualitative research method
using classroom observations and a follow-up, semi-structured
informal interviews were used to seek answers to the research
questions. Research findings revealed among difficulties faced by
Vietnamese students, language skills, textbook contents, cultural
knowledge and professional terminology used in commercial
textbooks are the biggest problems that the target students faced.
These major problems were analyzed in depth and suggestions based
on the research subjects‟ interviews and the researcher‟s classroom
practices and observations were made. The research also pointed out
limitations of the study, suggested topics for future action research
relating to discovered textbook problematic areas.

Keywords: Textbook Evaluation, Textbook Problems, Difficulties in Using Commercial

Textbooks, ESL Materials Evaluation

INTRODUCTION
After Vietnam carried out its open-door policy and after its full participation in the World
Trade Organization in 2007, the English language is widely used as an important tool in
doing international business with foreign partners. More schools and language centres are
opened in Vietnam, and schools are hurriedly picking up Western textbooks as their school
course books. Schools, particularly language centres, want to update their syllabus, so they
use new textbooks as one of the ways to attract more learners of English to their educational
institutes. As a result, old versions of some commercial textbooks like Streamline English,
Headway or Interchange that had been used in Vietnam for a long period quickly become
outmoded. However, this trend of using new and authentic commercial textbooks to attract
more learners to educational institutions or language centres has caused some disadvantages
to Vietnamese learners. Scholars, educators and teachers like Davison (1976), Hutchison and
Torress (1994) see the values of academic textbooks: “Textbooks as a „framework‟ or a
„guide‟ that help them to organize their learning both inside and outside the classroom –
during discussions in lessons, while doing activities and exercises, studying on their own,
doing homework, and preparing for the test.” However, some people claimed the use of
commercial textbooks in Vietnam as having without careful selection, “Courses are usually
designed once, materials are usually selected and developed once, and methodologies are
usually chosen once. All of these are supposed to, and even are believed to, work well with
all students and teachers for all situations” (Broger & Nguyen, 1999: 2). With these claims
and from difficulties perceived from Vietnamese learners who used commercial foreign

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textbooks, the researcher of this current study finds the importance of textbook evaluation,
and it gives good rational for this research paper.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TEXTBOOKS

First, let us have a look at ideas about the importance of textbook in school. Davison (1976)
considers textbooks as the second most important factor, merely next to teachers in EFL
classrooms. Young and Reigeluth (1988) carried out their classroom observation and
concluded that as much as 90% to 95% of classroom time was spent on interactions with
textbooks. Hutchinson and Torress (1994) also explain the positive viewpoints on using
textbooks from the learners‟ eyes as they say that “learners see textbooks as a „framework‟
or a „guide‟ that help them to organize their learning both inside and outside the classroom”
(pp. 315-328). They also say that during discussions in lessons, while doing activities and
exercises, studying on their own, doing homework, and preparing for the test, textbooks
enables students to learn better and faster.

Several other language theorists and educational researchers also recognized the importance
of textbooks used in classroom. Williams (1983), Sheldon (1988), Graves (2000), and
Harmers (2007) conducted their studies on textbook evaluation. For example, Williams
(1983: 255) suggests a sample of checklist that can help educators, teachers and learners
select textbooks, including seven selection categories: (1) general, (2) speech, (3) grammar,
(4) vocabulary, (5) reading, (6) writing, and (7) technical. Graves (2000) suggests textbook
users look at language contents, social context, textbook organization, unit sequence, unit
objectives and unit contents of textbooks before deciding to buy or use textbooks (p. 177).
Harmer (2007) further suggests to teachers and learners some specific features for course
book selection: price and availability, add-on and extras, layout and design, instructions,
methodology, syllabus, language skills, topics, cultural appropriateness, and teacher‟s guide
(p. 154).

ARE ALL COMMERCIAL TEXTBOOKS GOOD FOR OUR STUDENTS?

Although we cannot deny the fact that textbooks are often used for our classroom teaching
and learning, we still have to ask ourselves: “Are all textbooks available at bookshops good
for students?” We have to recognize that different authors or different writers suggested
different checklists or criteria for textbook selection, but they did not actually investigate the
real problems that our students face when using textbooks. Recognizing this gap, the
researcher carried out this project, trying to answer the following four questions:

(1) Does the use of Western textbooks cause any difficulties to Vietnamese students in term
of language skills?
(2) Are the contents of the Western textbooks suitable for Vietnamese students?
(3) Do Vietnamese students face any cultural problems when they use Western textbooks? If
they do, what cultural aspects do they face?
(4) Are Vietnamese students‟ learning styles suitable to the learning styles assumed by
Western textbook writers?

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Hopefully, when difficulties or problems caused by Western textbooks are recognized, an
adaption, an addition and a reduction of the textbooks can be made in classroom teaching.
Also, thanks to the results of this research, appropriate suggestions will be made to the people
in charge looking for a review and/or a renewal of the textbooks that are in use.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Textbooks Defined

According to Dat (2008), English textbooks used in ASEAN countries mainly fall into three
categories: (1) imported course books, (2) in-country course books and (3) regional course
books (p. 276). Imported textbooks that Dat mentioned are published by Western publishers
such as Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Longman, Heinemann, Heinle
& Heinle and Thomas Nelson & Sons. In Vietnam, they are often called “Western textbooks”
or “foreign textbooks” while in some other countries in the region, they are called
“commercial textbooks”. Perhaps, there are many types of Western textbooks used at the
researcher‟s university, but in this research paper the researcher merely studied one type of
Western textbooks recommended for Business English training known as Market Leader
textbook series because these textbooks are the obligatory textbook series Ho Chi Minh Open
University‟s students of English. The textbook was used as the main course book for
students‟ English speaking and listening skills development during the first two-years of their
bachelor degree before taking more advanced courses in debate and argument named Pubic
Speaking.

Problems Caused by “Western” Textbooks

Relating to problems or difficulties caused by textbooks, especially in the case of Vietnamese
educational settings, Pham (1999) remarks,
“Many institutions even have a tendency to use the curriculum designed by some
„prestigious‟ institutions in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City without considering how this
fits their own context…” (p. 6).

In the paper “The 3 R‟s of Teacher training in Vietnam: revising, reviving and researching”
presented at an international conference on language and development in Hanoi, Brogan and
Nguyen (1999) also expressed their concerns about the real situation of ELT materials
selection in Vietnam:
A „good‟ book that is available on the local market will be chosen and all or almost
all of what is in the contents page of the book become the core components of the
course. This attitude towards needs analysis has resulted in many components in the
course not being for the needs of learners in terms of developing their proficiency
level. (p. 2)

These two teachers –one from Australia and one from Vietnam continued to give their
comments on textbook selection in Vietnam:
Courses are usually designed once, materials are usually selected and developed
once, and methodologies are usually chosen once. All of these are supposed to, and
even are believed to, work well with all students and teachers for all situations. (p. 2)

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One interesting conclusion the researcher found out from their research article is that the
situation that these teachers mentioned has resulted in negative attitudes towards the use of
imported Western textbooks, towards the activities and towards tasks in materials
“… Many teachers and students believe that there are materials that are ideal for all
students and teachers, and for all situations. What may even be more worrying is that
these teachers often believe that everything in the book is „good‟. Other teachers and
students do not believe that teachers who are non-native speakers of English can
produce useful and meaningful activities and tasks.” (p. 3)

Other authors Nguyen (2005) and Dat (2008) also criticized Western textbooks used in
Vietnam. Nguyen (2005, p. 3) said materials from English-speaking countries do not “reflect
the learning styles or cultural values of the EFL students who use them, and as a result the
students‟ motivation suffers and they become reluctant to interact in class and share opinions
or ideas” although he did not go further to explain a very abstract idea of the term “culture” in
his viewpoint. In Dat (2008)‟s article ELT Materials Used in Southeast Asia printed as
Chapter 15 of the book English Language Learning Materials, Dat indicated problems that
Western textbooks cause to Southeast Asia students.
…The courses are occasionally inaccurate in presenting cultural information and
images about many cultures beyond the Anglo-Saxon and European world. Verbal
interactions often take place in English-speaking country settings, as if English only
served communication in the countries of native speakers. Imported textbooks are
priced above what many parents can afford to purchase for their children. While
putting emphasis on communicative use of English, such publications tend to stay
disconnected with the local examination system and this has generated anxiety among
parents who want their children to cope successfully with the national education
requirements. (Dat, 2008: 277)

Both Nguyen and Dat suggested that Western textbooks used in the Southeast Asia region in
general and in Vietnam in particular should be localized. Nguyen (2005) suggested:
Materials do not need to be totally representative of the local culture and that a
balance should be maintained between foreign and local cultural concepts and
images. This provides a rich opportunity for teachers to explain non-native cultural
items, in addition to using localized content. (p. 2)

Obviously, whether the ideas of these teachers and educators are right or not, these ideas still
have to be taken into great consideration, especially their ideas about culture and cultural
factors from Western textbooks that can affect textbooks users. Cultural aspects
recommended by these two authors need to be carefully examined in any culture-related
study because “culture” is a vague concept that is often misunderstood or cannot easily be
understood by students, even by teachers. However, one thing should be noticed from the
above comments on textbooks: there are still good reasons for Vietnamese schools at any
academic levels to take into consideration when they have to choose textbooks for their
school use. The researcher wonders if the textbook problems voiced by the researchers in the
literature section of this paper are still existing in Vietnamese classrooms because their
studies were conducted rather quite a long time ago while Vietnam is changing fast.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study is a qualitative research method. The research was implemented within 12 weeks
of an academic term. The study used a face-to-face interview and a classroom observation as
the main instruments for this research. The researcher played a role of a teacher researcher as
the researcher taught the target students and conducted his classroom observations without
notifying his participating role to the students.

Materials
The textbooks that the researcher used for this study are the Market Leader Intermediate and
Market Leader Upper Intermediate textbooks that are the two main course books that
students of Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ho Chi Minh City University are assigned to take.
These course books focus on “task-based teaching and the textbook lessons are authentically
tailored to train ESL/EFL students of Business English” (Cotton, D, Favley, D. & Kent,
2006). Each of the Market Leader textbook consists of 12 units, and each unit of the textbook
includes five sections for students‟ practice: (1) Discussion, (2) Texts, (3) Language Work,
(4) Skills and (5) Case-Study. Market Leader provides learners with professional
communications and language skills needed for a wide range of business situations. Listening
materials from the textbooks are recorded from business experts‟ interviews and materials
designed for reading texts are taken from the Financial Times newspaper. Due to the time
constraint, when being viewed as the final course of the speaking and listening program for
undergraduates, only four units from the Market Leader Intermediate textbook (Ethics,
Leadership, Innovation, and Competition) and six other units from the Market Leader Upper-
Intermediate textbook (Communication, International Marketing, Building Relationships,
Success, Job Satisfaction, and Risk) were chosen to teach the target students of this research.

Participants
Ten senior students aged between 25 and 30, including three adult males and seven adult
females from an evening class of 40 students from the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ho Chi
Minh City Open University voluntarily participated in the research interviews. There were
good reasons that the researcher selected this group of students as a research sample because,
if compared to other students who also used the same course books, these students had more
experiences in using the textbooks. They are the students who have continually spent at least
two years on using the whole textbook series. Perhaps these students will have a clearer view
of the textbooks in use, and hopefully they can offer more accurate ideas for the researcher‟s
textbook evaluation. For students‟ confidentiality, all participants‟ names were changed to
pseudonyms.

Procedures
A face-to-face, semi-structured interview was conducted to collect data for this research
paper. The interview was tape-recorded. Each interview lasted around 15 minutes in friendly,
informal settings to help students feel at ease to release appropriate, rich data for the research.
Ten semi-structured questions suggested by Brown (2002: 229) for textbook evaluation were
adapted for textbook evaluation interviews:

(1) Do you have any problems with listening and speaking skills when using Market Leader
Intermediate?

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(2) Do you have any problems with reading and writing skills?
(3) Do students have any problems with the language contents of the textbook?
(4) What problems in cultural aspects do you have when using the textbook?
(5) Do you have any problems with the vocabulary of the textbook?
(6) Does the textbook cause you any problems in learning styles?
(7) What other problems do you still have with the textbook?
(8) What are your reactions toward the textbook?
(9) Should the textbook be changed? Why? Why not?
(10) Should the whole textbook be studied or just some parts of the textbook?

Questions 1-6 aimed to investigate problems the students had in language skills, language
contents and cultural aspects. Questions 8-10 aimed to discover difficulties the target group
had in their learning styles, their attitudes and reactions towards the textbooks. The interview
structures of these semi-structured questions were unfixed. If the students‟ answers were
“yes” to the yes-no interview questions, more prompts from the researcher would be given to
the subjects help them give more detailed answers to the questions the researcher wanted to
investigate. The respondents were encouraged to express their ideas freely in English or even
in Vietnamese if they were stuck to express their ideas in English.

After the interviews, the researcher transcribed students‟ answers, coded data and found
themes relating to research questions. An interview grid was made and a matrix of problems
faced by Vietnamese students from interviews was built. Textbook problems were recognized
and coded as baseline study data for pie chart construction and content analysis. The
researcher‟s observations and classroom practices provide ideas for the researcher to compare
and contrast interviewees‟ ideas, and make suggestions on each problematic area that needs
more action research in the future.

RESULTS
The content analysis of the Market Leader Intermediate and Upper-Intermediate textbooks
was done in the basis of the interview answers which were then used as a baseline data for
textbook problem analysis that formed figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Problems face Vietnamese students using Market Leader textbooks

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Figure 1 shows us nine problem areas that the volunteers of this research study faced:
listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, language contents, cultural aspects,
textbook prices, and learning styles. In this figure, listening and language contents are
considered the biggest problems that the target students faced, taking 38% of the pie chart.
Cultural aspect is the second biggest difficulties that these learners had when it seized 17% of
the total pie chart of the figure. Other problem areas are in vocabulary (15%) and reading
(12%) while speaking seized 6%. Textbook prices and learning styles took only 10% and the
smallest problem of the pie chart is with writing (only 2%).

Figure 2: Major problems face Vietnamese students using Market Leader textbooks

Figure 2 shows us another picture when students‟ problems in listening, speaking, reading
and writing were combined into one category called “„language skills”. Figure 2 shows us
that problems in the four language skills faced by Vietnamese students when using Western
textbooks were then counted to 40%, compared to 19% of language contents and 17% of
cultural aspects. Vocabulary still played an important role in language learning. It seized 14%
of the total pie chart while learning styles and textbook prices took 10% of the pie chart.
However, when looking at 40% of the problems the target students faced in the language
skills of figure 2, the researcher recognized that the problems that the students faced are
mainly in listening (19%) and reading (12%) while speaking and writing seized a very small
percentage of the figure. The researcher also noticed that cultural aspects and language
contents of the textbooks are still the second biggest problems faced by the students of this
study. Difficulties the target students had in cultural aspects and language content are even
bigger than problems that the target students faced in reading while learning styles (6%)
seized a small portion of the total pie in figure 2.

In short, by analyzing the two figures, the researcher discovered that besides the biggest
problems in language skills, the target Vietnamese students still faced the second biggest
problems with the cultural aspects and textbook contents. They also had problems in
vocabulary, learning styles and textbook prices. Writing is the smallest problem that
Vietnamese students had.

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DISCUSSION
In this section, the researcher will discuss major problems the researcher has recognized in
the Results section above. The Results section shows that the target students using Market
Leader textbooks faced great difficulties in three areas: language skills (mainly with their
listening and reading skills), cultural aspects, and the language contents of the textbooks. The
students also faced difficulties in their learning styles, vocabulary although these problems
are small problems. Why did the students face such problems when using the textbooks?

Research Question 1: Difficulties in Language Skills

Reports released in IELTS Annual Review 2007 by British Council (2007, p. 14) in Vietnam
office shows that Vietnamese candidates taking IELTS academic tests obtained a rather low
mean score in listening skill (mean score: 5.53%) compared to other international candidates
in the South East Asia region (e.g.: mean score for Indonesia: 6.15; Philippine: 6.75;
Malaysia: 6.96; Thailand: 5.87).

Figure 2 shows us the main problems in language skills that the target Vietnamese students
faced falling mainly into two skills of listening and reading in which listening is a big
problem. As the researcher has pointed out in the Material sub-section, Market Leader
textbooks are “authentic” materials. The materials used in this textbook series are taken from
interviews conducted to experts in the field, and perhaps the ideas expressed by these experts
in the textbooks might have gone beyond the target students‟ levels. Nine out of ten
respondents had difficulties with their listening skill. The interviews revealed that listening is
“the most difficult section in the textbook”. The students can understand only 10%-30% of
the business talks or interviews due to business terms (Student D). The interviewees also said
that listening in Market Leader textbooks is difficult due to the speakers‟ accents. Students F
and J also think the speakers speak so fast and unclearly. They are “not native speakers from
English-speaking countries” because their non-standard accents cause great difficulties for
the target students to listen to and obtain their expertise.

One solution to these problems in listening is the adaptation of easier listening materials to
motivate Vietnamese students in listening lessons. Interview questions from the listening
lessons can also be used as topics for classroom discussions first. In discussions, key words
and main ideas from the interviews should be emphasized. By discussing these ideas in
advance, students will feel easier to listen to the interviews from the CD later. However, not
all interviews are used. Teachers should select the interviews that suit the purpose of the
lesson and the level of the learners. In addition, other Business English materials, audio-video
and the internet resources should be used to train students in listening.

Six of the interviewees of this study had problems in reading. They said reading texts are
long and contain many new, difficult business terms. Structures of reading texts are
complicated. Unfamiliar cultural aspects in reading texts caused difficulties for student C to
understand the texts. The researcher thinks difficult reading texts should be omitted. Easier,
graded reading texts from other business textbooks can be used as supplement materials.
Local newspapers and magazines are good sources to teach reading.

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Although difficulties in speaking and writing were not big, these two skills still caused
problems to the students. Student E thinks the “Starting Up” section from the speaking
section from Market Leader is hard for her. The “„Case Study” session in the textbooks is
another problem for students F and H as they did not have business experiences to solve
business “case study” exercises designed as problem-solving tasks by the textbooks. One
respondent said after solving problems in the “Case Study” section of the textbooks by
discussing with friends, she did not know how to do the writing tasks. One respond said he
could not practice speaking English much as his class was a “large class”.

The researcher thinks students should be provided with good opportunities to engage
themselves in problem-solving activities. Discussions, pair-work and group-work activities
should be used, especially teaching speaking skills in large classes. Richard (2002) and He
Ming-hui (2003) suggest the use of group work or pair work to promote cooperative learning
activities to engage students in larges classes as the say, “Group work and pair work play an
important part in maximizing student participation and communicative interaction” (cited in
Li, 2008: 14). Furthermore, Vietnamese business situations should also be introduced by
Vietnamese teachers to students as additional materials to motivate and engage students in
their free talks. Students should be encouraged to talk without fearing of making mistakes
because as Tudor (2001) recognizes, “Vietnamese students sit quiet in class.” If there are
reticent students in class, teachers should intervene by asking questions and suggesting words
and ideas to them. Students should be encouraged to talk, listen and take good notes. After
the speaking session, students can use their notes to do the writing assignments.

Research Question 2: Difficulties in Language Contents

From individual interviews conducted to the target students, the researcher obtained
interesting ideas on the textbooks in use. Student A thinks new business terms of Market
Leader textbooks have caused Vietnamese students problems in understanding the language
contents of the textbooks. Student A said each unit of the textbook “teaches too many
things”. Six respondents said they did not understand the language contents of the textbooks
as they did not study business subjects before. Pham (1999) once noted: “When using a
textbook developed in the West, many teachers fail to link the content of the lessons to the
students' lives and knowledge”. (p.7) As a result, experts‟ ideas expressed in the textbooks
are uneasy for students to understand. Student H said experts‟ ideas are “very knowledgable”
that is beyond her understanding. Meanwhile the textbooks require too much from students.
Students felt it hard to develop the four skills simultaneously (Student I). From the
researcher‟s viewpoint, before teaching any English courses, like Business English courses,
Vietnamese teachers should do their learners‟ needs analysis to provide suitable teaching
materials to students. The researcher thinks teachers should hold a view that Western
textbooks must be used as framework or a guide only. Teachers should adopt and manage
lessons according to students‟ special needs. Although the respondents of this study did not
suggest a change of the Western textbooks in use, they proposed teachers to skip “unpractical
parts” of each unit of the textbooks. They complained the contents of textbooks are “heavy”.
Teachers should note that no global commercial textbooks are suitable for some groups of
learners only as Graves (2000) says, “no textbook was written for your actual group of
students, and so it will need to be adapted in some way.” (p. 176)

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Research Question 3: Difficulties in Cultural Aspects
The interview also shows that cultural aspects of Western countries used in the reading
section of the Market Leader textbooks are unfamiliar to Vietnamese students, causing them
misunderstand the reading texts. One cultural aspect mentioned in Unit 2 “Coffee Culture” of
the textbook is “strange” to student B. Coffee is served free in European or Brazilian
restaurants after dinner is uncommon in Vietnam. Student E said religious cultures and
Western customs were also difficult for her to understand. Another cultural aspect that caused
problems to the target students is the so-called “business culture”. Half of the interviewees of
this research did not study Business English before, nor did they work in business
environments. As a result, famous Western entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs are
unknown to them. They said they did not know Western business brand names like AIG or
ICON because these brands did not have their subsidiaries or representative offices in
Vietnam. However, these cultural contents are introduced to the reading sections of the
Market Leader upper-intermediate textbooks. As a result, teaching contents relating to
“culture” caused great difficulties to the target students in understanding the textbook reading
texts. The researcher thinks difficult Western cultural contents should be replaced or taught
together with local culture. Western culture helps students to learn other different cultures
around the world while local culture can motivate local students in their study. Therefore,
when writing Business English textbooks, entrepreneurs who are successful and popular in
students‟ region should also be introduced to students. Information of these businesspeople
can easily be obtained via the internet sources, through the textbooks published by the
regional or local publishers. Teachers using Western textbooks should encourage students to
use the internet, local newspapers and magazines, and books to search information on
Western or local entrepreneurs. Culture quizzes and film shows are also an alternative way to
introduce Western culture to college students. The researcher thinks if Market Leader
textbook authors just introduce Western culture contents through reading texts, it will make
Vietnamese learners feel hard to understand the textbook content and as a result, student
motivation in acquiring business English language might be demotivated as Kilickaya (2004)
states:
…the role of the culture in the materials is just to create learner interest
towards contents and thus towards language, that is highly desirable. But overuse of
cultural materials in the language classrooms will constitute problems not for
students but also for the teachers and decrease the motivation. (p.4)

Research Question 4: Difficulties in Learning Styles

Among the four research questions, the results of this study show that difficulties in learning
styles the target learners faced seize a small portion, only 6% of figure 2. One interviewee
complained the teacher often asked him to complete reading tasks very quickly, and as a
result he could not finish the tasks on time. His learning style did not suit to the teaching
styles used by his reading teacher (Student A). Linguists named this learning style the
“Culture of Learning” (Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. X. 1996, Pham 1999, Li 1999). Slow language
learners often feel it hard to adapt this style of language learning. This student also said he
felt bored with role-play activities from the textbooks. This student also said teachers should
give students more home assignments for their self-taught activity. As the researcher has
remarked previously, Market Leader textbooks contain several things and each unit provides
students with many tasks. To student J, she could not finish learning one unit within one day

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as assigned to her by her reading teacher. Role-play is also another problem to Vietnamese
students. To student A, role-play is boring. That might come from the fact that he is a quiet
student. He said, “Role-play does not suit him.”

In brief, some problems relating “passive students” and “student learning styles” pointed out
by Pham (1999) and by other educators and teachers in their articles written years ago on
Vietnamese students‟ learning styles now have become old issues. Modern Vietnamese
learners have changed their learning habits and their learning styles to suit their classroom
settings. Vietnamese students are not “passive”, not coming to class to “acquire linguistic
and stylistic details” and “attend class, listen to the teacher's explanation, finish the
assignments and pass the final examinations” as Pham (1999) remarked in the past. Modern
Vietnamese students do require teachers to give them more time to talk. They need more
interactions in class and are provided with more home assignments to do. They like to learn
in small classes like most Western students do. They also know what activity is suitable to
their age to learn the target language.

Other Problems Recognized

Vocabulary
From the study, the researcher also discovered two other problems that the target Vietnamese
students faced. They are: (1) difficulty with vocabulary and (2) textbook prices. Three out of
the ten respondents said they had difficulties with new business terms used in Market Leader
textbooks. New business terms also contributed to the misunderstanding of the reading texts
as the research has analyzed in the Difficulties in Language Contents subsection above. The
researcher agrees with the idea of one interviewee that before Vietnamese students start this
Business English textbook series, they should “learn basic business subjects in Vietnamese
first”. Thanks to knowledge learned from subjects taught in Vietnamese, students will
understand meanings of new business terms that help them more easily interpret Western
textbooks later. A list of new words with detailed explanations should also be added to the
textbooks, and students should be encouraged to use a good monolingual or bilingual
dictionary like Longman Dictionary of Business English to look up the meanings of new
words in advance.

Textbook prices
One interesting problem this research paper identified is the problem of Western textbook
prices. One Market Leader textbook costs 300,000 VN dongs (roughly 10 US dollars) in
Vietnam. If learners want to buy CDs, they have to pay more. From the researcher‟s
classroom observations, two third of the students from the researched class have used „pirate
books‟ (with CDs) which were printed by a Vietnamese publishers. It costs them only one US
dollar for each copy. Some of them bought the original Market Leader textbooks and had
them photocopied. One interviewee said she was using a photocopied book because it was
“much cheaper” (about one US dollar or less than one US dollar per copy). However, the
photocopied books have caused one problem to her: the illustrations are “very unclear”.
Photocopied textbooks really make it hard for both the teacher and the students of this study
to fully exploit photographs and pictures. Pictures are dark and figures are also unclear. Bad
quality of reduplicated CDs accompanied to photocopied books is also another problem to

Vol. 2 Issue 2 681 November, 2015

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 LangLit
ISSN 2349-5189

An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal

students‟ listening skills. To deal with the high cost of original commercial course books,
from the researcher‟s view, the Longman publisher should do its split editions of Market
Leader like the Oxford publisher did with the textbook Smart Choice. Another choice is that
Longman can also cooperate with the local prestigious publishers like Ho Chi Minh City
Publisher FAHASA to produce low-cost textbooks just like McGraw-Hill worked with
FAHASA in producing the Interactions and Mosaic textbooks for Vietnamese students. The
researcher thinks if Longman performs this policy, the publisher will have a chance to avoid
being lost in its textbook selling profit, simultaneously helping Vietnamese students to take
their responsibility in protecting authors‟ intellectual property. With this policy, Longman
will also have another chance to cooperate with Vietnamese educators or writers in producing
low-cost Western textbooks that cover regional culture contents appropriate to local students‟
levels.

CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER

RESEARCH

Since Western textbooks caused problems to Vietnamese students, textbooks should be

carefully selected, modified and localized to serve teachers‟ teaching purposes and students‟
learning needs.

By conducting interviews to individual students, this research paper discovered problems in

language skills, language content, cultural aspects, learning styles and textbook prices that
Vietnamese students faced while using Market Leader textbooks –a popular business English
textbook widely used in Vietnam and other countries in the region. The study also suggested
possible solutions to problems, hoping to help teachers and students to overcome difficulties
and make good use of their textbooks. The suggested solutions to the problems faced by the
research students can only help if teachers and researchers carry out action research to such
separate problems areas in order to prove the researcher‟s proposals in this study are
workable or unworkable. Although the target learners have problems with the textbooks, the
researcher and all of the respondents of this study think Market Leader textbooks are still
good textbooks that can be used to teach Business English, but when in use the contents of
these textbooks should be carefully selected.

The study was implemented in a small group of students from one in-service class of
Business English within a time constraint of three-month coursework. This study was
unfortunately carried out at the time when daytime students were on the summer vacation. No
daytime classes could be available for research interviews. The study findings may reflect
only problems faced by one particular group of Vietnamese students. More research needs to
be conducted to other groups of students who are using similar textbooks. Therefore, future
research can focus on mainstream students from other academic fields of study, using the
same textbooks. If the study is done to other different groups of students, the study might
bring out different but interesting research results.

Vol. 2 Issue 2 682 November, 2015

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ISSN 2349-5189

An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal

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