Meeting the need for business English in the new Vietnam

Abstract

As a result of the New Economic Reform in Vietnam, the need for more business people proficient in the English language is constantly growing. This need requires the Hanoi Foreign Trade College, which is officially charged with the training of business people for the whole country, to devise relevant curricula for short courses in Business English. The purpose of this report is to examine some major theoretical and practical issues in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and in syllabus design that can provide course designers at the Hanoi Foreign Trade College with a deeper insight into the problems essential to the development of their work. The report consists of five chapters: (i) Chapter One is the Introduction. It gives the background to the study, pointing to changes in Vietnam and the role of the HFTC in adapting to meet the new need created by these changes. (ii) Chapter Two deals with the methodology employed in the data collection and discusses its findings. (iii) Chapter Three looks at some major theoretical issues in English for Specific Purposes with a view to applying this theory to the practical needs for Business English in Vietnam. (iv) Chapter Four is directly concerned with the planning of the short courses in Business English for Vietnam which are the central focus of this study. (v) Chapter Five is the Summary and contains recommendations for future development of the proposed short courses.

Date of Award	1992
Original language	English