Keywords

1 Introduction

In this globalization era, English language has been used worldwide in various education, business, and diplomacy settings, hence being acknowledged as the most popular lingua franca worldwide with predictably an increasing number of people speaking English as an additional language (Taguchi & Ishihara, 2018). Thus, possessing advanced English language proficiency is undoubtedly crucial for those intending to work effectively in multilingual environments and promising professional advancements. In Vietnam, the contribution of English language proficiency to Vietnamese graduates’ career prospects has also intensified the need for learning English language (Pham, 2011; Pham & Bui, 2019; Tran, 2018a). This belief has led to an integration of English language subjects in the national curriculum across educational levels (MOET, 2008) with different English language benchmarks required for Vietnamese college graduates (Pham & Bui, 2019). These benchmarks demonstrate the different English language levels that EFL learners in Vietnam need to achieve as per their levels of education. Normally, the evidence of such language proficiency is indicated by their achievements in internationally recognized English language standardized tests such as IELTS or TOEFL or other recognized English language proficiency tests. In addition to General English courses, higher education institutions (HEIs) in Vietnam have initiated English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses, which marks an increasing attention and demand for English language skills for job-oriented purposes, especially since Vietnam’s participation in World Trade Organization in 2007 (B. H. Nguyen et al., 2019).

However, despite many well-stated policies across universities in the nation on improving English language proficiency for Vietnamese learners to advance their careers, it has been reported that Vietnamese graduates appear to fail to use English for communicative purposes effectively, even including those who are English-major graduates (Nguyen & Pham, 2016; Pham & Bui, 2019). Evidently, these policies on mandating and benchmarking English language proficiency for Vietnamese graduates may impose negative aspects of anxiety on students, causing them to learn the language as being mandated rather than the awareness of the benefits that the language offers for their future work and education (Pham & Bui, 2019).

In addition, whether Vietnamese higher education (HE) graduates’ professional prospects can entirely depend on their English language skills still needs further consideration. Indeed, employability necessarily comes into play, which is understood as fundamental opportunities for their chances of being employed based on their qualified knowledge and skills required beyond this language. Expanding necessary knowledge and skills for employability, Tomlinson (2017) presents different forms of capital that one should obtain. These forms of capital refer to resources that a graduate possesses in terms of social relationships, knowledge, wealth, and sense of belonging that construct a well-qualified individual for successful work performances. Therefore, it seems that employability demands other aspects of knowledge and skills beyond English language proficiency which is only a form of the necessary capital. Thus, there may still be a void of other required knowledge and skills that graduates need to possess for their desired employment opportunities and employability.

To produce a well-rounded workforce, HEIs in various contexts have shifted their views of ESP courses in the curriculum, transforming from advancing learners’ English language proficiency to creating an inclusion of professional knowledge (Nguyen & Pham, 2016). Under the expansion in ESP courses to cover both linguistic and professional knowledge and skills at higher education level, challenges still occur as ESP instructors are found mainly to have expertise in General English and lack specialized knowledge and skills relevant to the disciplines that they are teaching such as Tourism, Business, or Nursing. In a different scenario, those who are qualified in their specialization may not be proficient in English language to make it a medium of instruction (Nguyen & Pham, 2016). This inadequacy in covering professional terminology and knowledge has been well seen in Vietnamese HEIs, but this has not yet been adequately solved. This long-lasting pitfall in ESP education restricts Vietnamese higher education learners’ English language proficiency and professional development for their future careers, as a result (Nguyen & Pham, 2016).

To track the circumstances of ESP education in Vietnamese educational context and how these ESP courses impact Vietnamese graduates’ employability, this study explores how the ESP courses contribute to employability of Vietnamese graduates who had undertaken ESP courses in their college degree programs before current work and what needs to be further addressed in these courses for better support of employability of the future graduates. This study consists of two phases in which the first one involves an open-ended survey with Vietnamese graduates to develop a 4-point Likert scale survey in the second phase, covering the themes found in the first phase and including the benefits of ESP courses toward Vietnamese graduates’ employability, the mismatches between the goals of the courses and the actual knowledge and skills that Vietnamese graduates encounter at their workplaces. These findings subsequently support recommendations for improvements in ESP course design and teaching practices to enhance Vietnamese graduates’ employability.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Employability

Employability is a topic of extensive discussion as the primary goal that HEIs aim to achieve. To define employability, Yorke (2006) reflects on graduates possessing “a set of achievements – skills, understanding and personal attributes” to assist graduates’ employment and work performance, “which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community, and the economy” (p. 8). This view on employability covers a wide range of personal and social aspects that altogether help graduates identify elements that they need to become qualified labor forces and identify the roles of these elements to both self and social development. Despite this comprehensive perception of employability, different interpretations of what it means are unavoidable. On the one hand, employability may refer to an outcome of certain labor markets or the workers’ employment status (Forrier & Sels, 2003; McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005). On the other hand, employability should be extended to cover workers’ employment-related meaningfulness (Fugate & Kinicki, 2008; Pham & Jackson, 2020).

The changing view of employability reflects the development in sociology research, showing that employability is not solely limited to the workers’ knowledge, skills, and attributes to enable them to seek jobs as they desire. Such a perspective on employability also stresses the negotiations between the employers and workers about how both of them support each other in achieving the workers’ goals of accepting requirements and expectations of the other. Explicitly, a wider range of employment types has emerged, and a larger number of graduates have persisted in the shift of the labor market. Thus, employability is not limited to a story of how the graduates find different ways to fit themselves to be employed, but how they should find strategies to make them employable workers, according to the rapidly changing labor markets in size and shape (Pham, 2021). Having different outlooks about employability is complicated but essential for educators in HEIs to define it properly and seek appropriate teaching approaches commensurate with different aspects of employability. Thereby, prospective graduates can respond well to the high demands of stakeholders in various job settings.

Following the various standpoints toward employability, different models have been proposed to capture the qualities that qualified graduates should obtain. As indicated above, Tomlinson (2017) pinpoints five forms of capital that prospective graduates or current graduates should acquire, including human capital, social capital, cultural capital, psychological capital, and identity capital. These forms of capital respectively indicate graduates’ possession of relevant characteristics, social networks, knowledge and skills, mindsets, and a sense of belonging to fit themselves to the work conditions and potentially undertake in-service professional development. These forms of capital are likely to be interrelated and altogether promising for their professional prospects. Besides Tomlinson (2017), Clarke (2018) also constructed her employability model that emphasizes graduates’ psycho-social aspects, which could be developed together with many other stakeholders in the job market.

Discussions about employability have then shifted from its elements to agents that are responsible for ensuring graduates’ acquisition of these important elements for their employability. Tran (2015) and Tran (2018b, 2018c) state that stakeholders seem to blame each other regarding who should be primarily responsible for developing the graduates’ employability skills although researchers seem to agree with shared responsibilities of different agents in this regard. Firstly, Tran (2018b, 2018c) suggests that HE institutions are the most responsible party for this goal by offering various forms of learning (formal learning, field trips, extra-curricular activities, or learning with guest speakers from the industries). Meanwhile, external partners also need to join this collaborative effort to minimize the gaps between the institutions’ availability of competencies in equipping the graduates’ competencies and the employers’ expectations toward their graduates’ resultant competencies upon graduation (Rae, 2007). Indeed, employability is extended to cover both pre-service and in-service courses when many skills can only be developed in the work contexts. This extension to the in-service stage suggests that employers be critical helpers of the graduates’ employability skills (Hager, 2006; Holland, 2006; Knight & Yorke, 2004; Yorke, 2006). In other words, employers should not just “take everything and give nothing” (Yorke, 2006, p. 3).

However, some other researchers (Bridgstock, 2009; Leong & Kavanagh, 2013; Van Buren, 2003) argue that the primary responsibilities of employability should lie in students and graduates themselves because they are those bringing real experiences, engaging in their work-related situations by themselves, and strategically pulling down many work-related challenges based on their personal choices and capabilities. Because different stakeholders, job markets and disciplines have distinctive demands on graduates, it should not be only students’ tasks to bring the potential employers’ expected competencies to the forefront (Holland, 2006). Thus, employability skills should be the ultimate result of collaborations between relevant parties, higher education institutions, and other parties, such as policymakers, students, graduates, and employers (Tran, 2015). The voices of policymakers, employers, higher educational school leaders and administrators, and students are altogether of significance to help students visualize the demands of the job markets and importantly how to apply the academic knowledge and skills related to their chosen subjects to succeed in the actual work settings (Tran et al., 2020).

2.2 ESP Education and Employability

English language has become increasingly important in this globalization era for being a global language across and among nations. As English language proficiency is a key driver for graduates’ employment or employment sustainability (Tran, 2015), the roles of universities in equipping them with English knowledge and skills specialized for their field of studies become inevitably critical to support the students’ readiness to their future work contexts (Ritter et al., 2018). Following the roles of English language in enhancing graduates’ employability, HEIs have paid extensive attention to designing courses that help learners become proficient in this language for professional purposes.

ESP education generally prepares learners with adequate English language skills to handle communicative situations in a specific professional area. This preparation creates language immunization (Hamid et al., 2019), meaning that learners or graduates will handle different situations in their professional settings using the acquired language and knowledge from ESP courses. To illustrate, Swales (1992) contends that ESP is a subfield of Language for Specific Purposes that promotes “the area of inquiry and practice in the development of language programs for people who need a language to meet a predictable range of communicative needs” (p. 300). To sufficiently prepare learners for future professional communication, ESP courses need to adhere to “the requirements of the learner rather than by external factors” (Strevens, 1977, p. 186). Thus, ESP courses should aim to foster a certain type of specifically purposeful communication. Therefore, teaching ESP courses should also be student-centered, needs-based, and relevant to workplace scenarios.

While the conventional view of ESP courses heavily emphasizes language skills, an effective ESP course is further argued as learning for profession. Learners should also learn the knowledge and skills relevant to their prospective professions (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). One of the reasons for this expansion from language to professional knowledge and skills in ESP courses is to support learners’ acquisition of ESP knowledge and their future employability. Johnson (1993) provides an example of how ESP can be tied to disciplinary knowledge. Focusing on Business English, he states that to acquire Business terminology effectively, learners need to be equipped with Business knowledge to see how a term is used in a specific business context. Nonetheless, this requirement of both language and content knowledge turns out to be challenging for both learners and instructors in ESP education (Gaye, 2020; B. H. Nguyen et al., 2019). This is because a word in General English may be interpreted differently in Business contexts. In another instance of Nursing discipline, Basturkmen (2010) stresses the need for ESP teachers in Nursing to know the language and nursing-related knowledge to comprehend health reports, which is necessary for them to contextualize how Nursing terminology is used.

These principles of having both ESP terminology and specialized knowledge for the learners to make sense of ESP terms suggest that the associated contents in the ESP classrooms be closely intertwined with the reality of how English is used in the students’ intended or current workplaces (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; van Naerssen et al., 2005). Despite its potential to produce a well-rounded labor force, this requirement is in turn problematic due to the imbalance between English language and specialized content knowledge that ESP instructors should obtain to teach ESP courses successfully. To explain, Nguyen and Pham (2016) found that ESP teachers are in fact trained in General English programs in some contexts. Although this step is foundational to teaching ESP courses, it highlights the lack of sufficient training for specialized content knowledge that ESP instructors are entitled to. Therefore, while requiring ESP courses to prepare learners with specialized language and knowledge, it seems unachievable when ESP educators themselves are not always specialists in these aspects.

Following the imbalance between language and professional knowledge in ESP courses, this dismay questions the qualities of graduates from ESP courses when they enter their professional world. Several forms of capital have been pointed out as constituents of employability such as human capital (knowledge and skills), social capital (network with others), cultural capital (understanding of work culture and practices in a specific industry), psychological capital (attributes that make one bold in their career development), and identity capital (Clarke, 2018; Tomlinson, 2017). Meanwhile, the extent to which ESP courses can construct these capital forms for the learners before their entrance to different career paths is under-addressed. For instance, ESP courses, despite their provision of both professional terminology and knowledge, may only satisfy the demand of cultural capital, and let alone other crucial elements for employability (Tomlinson, 2017). Through several challenges in ESP education that have been raised by different researchers (Le et al., 2020; T. C. N.Nguyen et al., 2019), the core obstacles refer to the absence or imbalance of either the language or the content knowledge that ESP learners are provided for their future work areas.

2.3 ESP Education and Employability in Vietnam

Implementing ESP courses in HE degree programs is no longer unfamiliar in many educational contexts, including Vietnam. However, how these ESP courses are designed and taught and their contributions toward employability require further investigation. In some contexts, such as Vietnam, there have been debates on whether graduates who have undertaken ESP courses at the HE level are qualified for employability. The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has unstoppably developed many educational guidelines and innovations that correspond to the national needs and integration into the global forces. The National Foreign Language Project 2020 (2008–2020) aimed to develop Vietnamese citizens’ abilities to use English as a foreign language in daily and professional settings (Nguyen, 2011). Despite such goals and efforts in raising Vietnamese learners’ English proficiencies, it has been unknown whether professional skills are given adequate attention to, which requires further exploration to visualize the circumstances of ESP education in Vietnam and the graduates’ employability as the outcome of these ESP courses.

Limited research has attended to the operations of ESP courses in Vietnam and the extent to which learners are benefitted from those courses for future careers. Some studies conducted in Vietnamese context emphasize the acquisition of ESP terminology and the actual language used for communication at workplaces (Le et al., 2020; T. C. N.Nguyen et al., 2019). These studies show a gap between what is taught in ESP programs and the authentic job demands when the knowledge in ESP textbooks seems too general and inauthentic. Several reasons regarding ESP instructors’ qualifications, ESP course design, and other institution-related problems altogether restrict the contributions of ESP education to employability (Nguyen & Pham, 2016). Despite some available findings on ESP education circumstances in Vietnam, further research is still needed to delve into Vietnamese graduates’ perceptions of the benefits of ESP courses toward employability, the irrelevant issues in the design and teaching of ESP courses, and potential implications for more effective ESP course design and teaching. Given that graduates have been immersed in work settings, their perceptions are valuable to reflect on the values of knowledge acquired in ESP courses for their employability. The expected outcome of this understanding would contribute to a better understanding of how well graduates are prepared for employability from ESP programs. This finding will further provide implications to effectively design and implement ESP courses in higher education to maximize graduates’ employability.

3 Methodology

This study aims to explore Vietnamese graduates’ perspectives toward the benefits of ESP courses for their employability. The study also emphasizes aspects that ESP courses are unable to provide learners. Particularly, this study seeks answers to the following questions.

  • In what ways and to what extent did the ESP courses benefit Vietnamese professionals in terms of career development?

  • What were the limitations and obstacles of ESP classes, in their experiences?

This study primarily relied on a quantitative approach (Creswell, 2009) as a viable and potential tool to help us determine the differences in motivations and perceived benefits of and challenges they faced regarding joining ESP courses between participants, the challenges facing them in terms of the ESP courses, and the suggestions benefitting future success of the ESP courses for the Vietnamese college students. Participants of this study included currently employed graduates, preferably with one to two years of work experience after graduation. However, due to difficulties in approaching graduates, this study was open to those with more than two years of experience, but we still preferred those graduates with one to two years of graduation so that they could provide us with their experiences with most recent ESP courses offered by Vietnamese universities and how such courses influenced their employability.

We understood that different work settings would have different demands on graduates, and ESP courses at different HEIs would follow different learners’ needs, course objectives, curriculum design, teaching and learning resources, and teaching approaches. Therefore, before designing a survey to collect quantitative data from a large group of participants, we explored the diversity and authenticity of work demands of the wide groups of potential graduate participants, characteristics of ESP courses that they partook in, and the (mis)matches between what ESP courses offered and their work requirements as perceived by graduates based on their real experiences, as well as suggestions for improving ESP courses (Cameron, 2009; Creswell, 2009; Given, 2008; Khng, 2020). This initial understanding would support the creation of items in the survey to be as relevant to Vietnamese graduates’ employability skills and ESP education in Vietnam as possible. Keeping that in mind, we conducted the study in two phases:

In Phase 1, we developed our first draft of the open-ended questionnaire (in English) with the content being checked by a few EFL college-level teachers in Vietnam who taught English to both major and non-major English learners. Then, in September 2021, we finalized the English version of the questionnaire, translated it into the Vietnamese language and cross-checked with a Vietnamese EFL lecturer for translation accuracy. Then, we distributed the Vietnamese translated version of the questionnaire to collect the opinions of Vietnamese graduates with 1–2 years of work experience about their past ESP learning experiences at their universities. There were ten questions in the questionnaire, including their professional English learning experiences, prior academic disciplines, and types of universities that they attended. Also, we were curious about the professionals’ current types of work, job descriptions and demands, and the necessity of English language in the workplace, the knowledge and skills that they had learned in ESP courses, and the extent to which they thought ESP courses could prepare them for successful work performances. The graduates were encouraged to draw on their experiences with ESP courses and current work circumstances to respond to the questions. We distributed the questionnaire to Vietnamese universities’ alumni groups and directly to the graduates.

After collecting the responses from 16 graduates, we separately coded and analyzed using a thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The responses were read, and segments related to our predetermined themes in the research questions about the benefits and challenges of ESP education to employability were highlighted. We also noted sub-themes and other emergent themes from the data. The researchers met to discuss the coding process and the themes. As a result, the predetermined and emergent themes as noted in parentheses included (i) the reasons for taking ESP courses at college (core course selection and availability, intended career paths, personal interests), (ii) the current work demands (English language, professional knowledge, and various generic skills), (iii) the benefits and mismatches that ESP courses offered in alignment with those demands (English language, disciplinary knowledge, and generic skills), and (iv) recommendations for ESP education (curriculum design, learning resources, instructors’ qualities, teaching approaches, and assessment).

In Phase 2, drawing on the themes identified in Phase 1 and from literature review, we developed an online survey to collect data from a larger number of participants. This survey had three main sections. Section 12.1 aimed to collect participants’ demographic information. Section 12.2 explored college graduates’ motivations for enrolling in ESP courses and the benefits they perceived to get from participating in such courses. In Sect. 12.3, we sought to explore participants’ experiences with the challenges they faced when taking the ESP courses. In Sects. 12.2 and 12.3, participants were asked to rate the items on a 4-point Likert scale, in which 1 as “No ideas/comments”, 2 as “Strongly disagree”, 3 as “Disagree”, 4 as “Agree”, and 5 as “Strongly agree”. In October 2021, quantitative data collection process started. We adopted a snowball sampling technique to ensure that the data would be collected within the timeframe we had. We sent the link of the survey to 15 colleagues in several universities in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi so that they could share it to their alumni networks. After three weeks, we received 232 responses. The demographic information of the participants will be reported later in the Results section.

We analyzed the quantitative data using the SPSS (version 26). We first identified and removed outliers. We checked internal consistency of the retained data set for Sects. 12.2 and 12.3 of the survey using Cronbach Alpha (α = 0.87 and 0.73 respectively). We calculated Mean (M) and Standard Deviation (SD) to determine the levels of expectations prior to enrolling in ESP courses, the levels of benefits they gained out of the ESP courses, and the levels of challenges they faced while studying these courses. We also used percentages to show the ratio between groups of participants who showed their positive or negative reflections with these ESP courses, named “agreement” (combining “strongly agree” and “agree”) and “disagreement” (combining “strongly disagree” and “disagree”).

4 Results

4.1 Demographics

There were a total of 232 responses; however, we decided to remove 12 responses that were identified as outliers by SPSS due to the incompleteness. Out of 220 participants, 153 were females and 67 were males, working in three primary sectors of the labor force and having an average of 24.8 years of age. Moreover, there were 178 participants working in the private sectors, 38 in the public companies, and 4 as the self-employed or freelancers. Also, a total of 99 participants were employed in the Economics, Business, and Services sectors, greater than that of the Science, Engineering, Technology (69 participants) and the Social Sciences and Humanities (40 participants), and the Agriculture and Fisheries (12 participants).

Among the participants, 87 participants had worked from one to two years, 70 from three to four years, and 57 with five years and over. Out of 220, 180 participants shared that their current work was not directly related to their ESP studies. Also, 131 participants reported to use English regularly in their work environments, 78 participants reported that their work required to have an occasional use of English, and only 11 revealed that their work required little to no English use (Table 12.1).

Table 12.1 Participants’ demographics
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4.2 Perceived Benefits of Participating in ESP Courses

Our findings showed that the professionals reflected their positive opinions on ESP courses, with particular regards to the courses’ scientific knowledge (such as terms and structures). In this regard, they benefited from their past ESP courses (70.40%; M = 3.85, SD = 0.73). However, the findings also mentioned the participants’ low rate regarding the ESP courses toward their later work opportunities (45.90%; M = 3.45, SD = 0.84) and toward their general major-related knowledge (42.70%; M = 3.39, SD = 0.88). However, the ESP courses could not strengthen their chances of career development (31.80%; M = 3.19, SD = 0.95) (Table 12.2).

Table 12.2 Participants’ responses to what they expected to gain before their ESP courses
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Contrary to their experiences in the ESP programs at any time of the degree programs or after, the consequences of their participation were slightly positive. From Table 12.3, they found that they became more confident to take several classes related to their academic disciplines (63.60%; M = 3.63, SD = 0.80), which altogether enabled their better attainment of general knowledge as part of their majors’ ultimate outcomes (57.30%; M = 3.68, SD = 0.99). It was observed that this was closely aligned with their motivations before taking the ESP classes (referred to Table 12.2). In addition to that, parallel to the General English courses, the professionals showed their differing opinions about the benefits of ESP courses toward their English language proficiency (Table 12.3). Evidently, the Listening skills were the most noticeable, with nearly 58.20% realizing the positive impacts (M = 3.89, SD = 0.81). Next came their Reading skills at a smaller percentage (68.70%; M = 3.80, SD = 0.84) and the Writing skills (24.10%; M = 3.75, SD = 0.84). The lowest one belonged to the Speaking skills (65.00%; M = 3.05, SD = 0.86).

Table 12.3 Participants’ responses to what knowledge they gained after ESP courses
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As seen from Table 12.4, the ranges of their positive opinions on how the ESP courses can benefit non-academic skills were clear. Accordingly, teamwork (91.40%; M = 4.52, SD = 0.69) and management (93.20%; M = 4.52, SD = 0.62) were the most developed skills in the ESP courses, closely followed by their skills of raising new ideas (83.20%; M = 4.23, SD = 0.73). These skills were found to considerably outperform some others, including negotiation (65.50%; M = 3.88, SD = 0.89), presentation (60.40%; M = 3.70, SD = 0.87), creativity (57.30%; M = 3.63, SD = 0.87), and critical thinking (50.40%; M = 3.60; SD = 0.88). In stark contrast, the ESP courses still challenged the professionals to develop their life-long learning (36.80%; M = 3.35, SD = 0.79), problem-solving (36.30%; M = 3.26, SD = 0.88), and sense of leadership (25.50%; M = 3.04, SD = 1.03).

Table 12.4 Participants’ responses to what skills they gained after their ESP courses
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As listed in Table 12.5, the certain benefits of ESP courses toward our professionals’ academic and non-academic competence were indicated in seven different aspects as follows:

Table 12.5 Participants’ responses to what caused them to participate in ESP courses ineffectively
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  • Knowledge management: The professionals seemed to have contradictory views about the influence of their General English on their study in ESP courses, with a little more than half (50.90%) believing that it helped whereas almost the same percentage of them believed that it did not help (48.20%). Also, more professionals believed that a lack of major-related knowledge could negatively affect their study in the ESP courses (41.80%; M = 3.41, SD = 0.87).

  • Instructors: They slightly felt confident about their past instructors’ major-related skills (51.80%; M = 3.66, SD = 0.96), but not with their instructors’ General English (GE) knowledge in the majors (20.90%; M = 3.04, SD = 0.98). However, a considerable number of them had no ideas about their ESP teachers’ GE skills, so there was little evidence of the quality of ESP courses’ teaching workforce.

  • Focus on content knowledge: They reported that the ESP courses were too heavy in theory (82.30%; M = 4.29, SD = 0.78) and failed to focus on certain areas of knowledge (79.10%; M = 4.09, SD = 0.80).

  • Curriculum and learning resources: They could utilize learning resources (e.g., styles, contents, origins) (45.00%; M = 3.50, SD = 0.85), but they were concerned about the inadequate updates in light of the global and national contexts (79.00%; M = 4.11; SD = 0.80).

  • Teaching practice: A majority of them showed concerns about the ESP courses neglecting the learners’ career-related needs (92.80%; M = 4.43, SD = 0.64), with 62.30% of the professionals also pointing out their special attention to the ESP courses’ hands-on skills (62.30%; M = 3.76, SD = 0.78).

  • Assessment: Just more than half of the professionals agreed that ESP courses used assessment tasks that relied on (51%) whereas almost an equal percentage of them disagreed (46.7%). They held their downside views about interrupted assessment that prevented their progressive performance (70.90%; M = 3.95; SD = 0.82).

  • Workload: While the class size in ESP courses lowered their chances of engagement (M = 3.89; SD = 0.79), the low number of ESP courses was considered (49.50%; M = 3.58, SD = 0.85).

5 Discussion

This study aimed to identify Vietnamese HE graduates’ perspectives on the impacts of ESP courses on their employability. In this study, ESP courses at HE level significantly contributed to graduates’ employability by developing their specialized language, knowledge, and generic skills. However, while these forms of knowledge and skills are found in the study, there are proposed implications to maximize the benefits of ESP courses for practical professional experiences. These features are necessary but seem to be loosely attended to in the current literature. The study also confirmed the ultimate responsibilities of HEIs in preparing future graduates for their career prospects through the provision of courses that develop necessary knowledge and skills for students to sufficiently respond to the job demands (Tran, 2018b, 2018c). This responsibility refers to ensuring effective ESP course design, adequate learning resources, and qualified teaching agents.

5.1 The Benefits of ESP Courses Toward Graduates’ Employability

The findings of this study revealed several alignments between graduates’ perspectives of ESP courses that they had taken and the general principles of ESP courses as claimed in the literature. These alignments can be summarized as regards the coverage of disciplinary language and knowledge and remarkably an extension to generic skills. This contribution of ESP courses aligns with the characteristic of ESP education as learning for profession (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019) in preparing learners with necessary cultural capital of professional language, knowledge, and skills for successful work performances (Tomlinson, 2017). The development in these areas ensures job opportunities and successful job performances, both of which are essential for employability (Yorke, 2006).

Firstly, an advancement in language proficiency is still one of the central aspects of ESP courses. The students have demonstrated their expectations to advance their knowledge of professional terminology from taking these courses, which seems to be the foremost benefit of ESP courses (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019). However, upon completing the courses, the students further admit a comprehensive development of receptive and productive skills which are essential in settings where English is a lingua franca (Liton, 2015; Nguyen, 2011; T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019). Therefore, the study extended the dimension of language development in ESP courses, ranging from lexical resources to macro-language skills for different communicative purposes at work settings, affirming the significance of ESP courses in Vietnamese higher education for employability. For ESP courses aiming to prepare graduates for effective communication in work settings, developing micro-lexical features and macro-language skills assists graduates’ use of specialized language for communicative purposes (Le et al., 2020; T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019).

Furthermore, ESP courses are no longer primarily oriented toward language learning but advancing students’ field-based knowledge. This shift helps learners succeed in major-related courses in their HE programs and prepare them with necessary knowledge for work settings. In addition, ESP courses are deemed to build up necessary generic skills for employability. The generic skills include negotiation, cooperation, critical thinking, communication, creativity, innovation, life-long learning, problem-solving, and leadership and management (Tran, 2019; Yorke, 2006). Despite the imbalanced development in these skills as perceived by the graduates, most generic skills are advanced after taking ESP courses. This advancement affirms the essence of ESP courses because current research concludes the importance of these skills for employability. For example, researching English language used in Customs settings in Vietnam, T. C. N. Nguyen et al. (2019) recognize that what has been taught in English for Customs subjects at school may not fit the language used in communication in actual customs scenarios. Therefore, Vietnamese Customs officers need to be competent in intercultural communication with multicultural-multilingual passengers to be able to recognize the language used in authentic work contexts, adapt to that use, and deal with miscommunication for a successful exchange of messages at work. Thus, along with disciplinary language and knowledge offered in ESP courses, generic skills are crucial for work operations with efficiency and flexibility (Liton, 2015; T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019) for successful job performances as an aspect of employability (Yorke, 2006).

Hence, ESP courses researched in the study have satisfied the principle of learning for profession and employability in that the students are well-rounded to deal with communication and work operation in their professional settings (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). These aspects of language, knowledge, and skills are of significance to advance graduates’ cultural capital (Tomlinson, 2017) so that they are able to respond well to the demands in different job settings. Furthermore, cultural capital has been found to be closely related to and able to advance other forms of capital (Tomlinson, 2017). Thus, ESP courses are likely to play an essential role in creating a well-rounded labor force when different forms of capital could be developed, drawing on the advanced cultural capital in ESP courses.

5.2 Limitations in the Design and Teaching of ESP Courses

While ESP courses offer numerous benefits, there are limitations in ESP course design and teaching practices. It is noted that the design of ESP courses should effectively respond to learners’ needs to inform ESP course design and teaching practices (Johns & Dudley Evans, 1991; Li et al., 2020). In designing an ESP course, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) emphasize the coverage of materials, course content, teaching approaches, and assessment as core elements. Additionally, the teaching of ESP courses should be scaffolding students’ practical experiences to familiarize themselves with the actual scenarios in workplaces to function well in work contexts. Nonetheless, there are still limited teaching resources, qualifications of instructors, and insufficient investment in ESP courses in Vietnam (Nguyen & Pham, 2016).

To obtain the benefits in ESP courses, students should be well-equipped with both the language and knowledge in their disciplines (Basturkmen, 2010; Johnson, 1993; B. H. Nguyen et al., 2019). However, the students are limited in their professional knowledge that supports their acquisition of the content in ESP courses. Moreover, the content of ESP courses seems to be too general, which fails to expose students to specific professional areas. The participants highlighted that curriculum and learning resources should be made important. Johns and Dudley Evans (1991) require that ESP courses focus on developing language and content knowledge relevant to the professional area that learners will depart for upon their graduation. Therefore, it is essential to understand learners’ professional goals for a better design of ESP courses.

The graduates are widely concerned about practical experiences and readiness for employment, so they put forward the necessity of hands-on skills. However, theoretical knowledge presented in textbooks is predominant in ESP courses, limiting the students’ practical experiences in applying theory into practice. The theory-focused teaching tends to be influenced by conventional teaching approaches in Vietnam that aim at developing grammatical and lexical resources and test-taking skills (Nguyen & Pham, 2016). As theoretical knowledge is emphasized, the students are consequently assessed on their ability to memorize the knowledge, rather than their application of this knowledge to career-based scenarios. Thus, ESP courses are not effectively operated as learning for profession but as an assessment of language skills. Without explicitly delivering the hands-on skills, the instructors have no room to accurately assess and effectively support the learners in developing relevant cultural capital for future employability (Johns & Dudley Evans, 1991; B. H. Nguyen et al., 2019; Tomlinson, 2017).

In addition, ESP instructors might not obtain sufficient cultural capital to conduct their teaching effectively to support learners’ advancement of their language, knowledge, and skills for employability. In this study, ESP instructors tend to be those with a General English (GE) major. While the participants mentioned that their instructors must have good General English skills, previous research has raised concerns about inadequacy in both English language and specialized knowledge in ESP instructors. ESP teachers originally are General English teachers and may be unable to provide students with adequate language, knowledge, and skills commensurate with the demands in work settings (Gaye, 2020; Nguyen & Pham, 2016). Basturkmen (2010) also questions ESP teachers’ ability to transmit professional knowledge and the meaning of ESP terminology to students if they are not proficient in these aspects. As the graduates in this study highly attend to acquiring ESP vocabulary for communicative purposes, combining language and content knowledge and intensive practice is encouraged to train these graduates to use ESP terminology for communication successfully (Johns & Dudley Evans, 1991; Liton, 2015; Nguyen & Pham, 2016). Yet, these problems are reiterated by the students in this study, emphasizing the ineffective teaching approaches and limited experience with specific disciplines of the ESP teaching teams at higher education.

With these mismatches between learners’ expectations and actual ESP education, ESP courses might fail to prepare learners to satisfactorily respond to the job demands. These obstacles have been long discussed in Vietnamese ESP education, but they seem to continually exist as limitations in ESP education in this context (Nguyen & Pham, 2016). Although further information on the reasons for these limitations is not explored in this study, the problem of insufficient course designs and materials could be attributed to the lack of assessment of learners’ needs. These limitations of ESP courses could reduce students’ learning motivation and persistent engagement (Filak & Sheldon, 2008; B. H. Nguyen et al., 2019). Learners tend to be motivated and engaged in learning activities if their needs are satisfied. Given the limitations of ESP courses as reported by the participants, the risk of disengaging learners in the courses might be predictable and detrimental to the development of their English language, knowledge, and skills for their professional areas.

5.3 Recommendations for Designing and Teaching ESP Courses

Following graduates’ perspectives on the benefits and obstacles offered in ESP courses, they have provided several recommendations for effectively teaching and designing these courses. From the findings, the students aim to develop professional language, knowledge, and generic skills for successful employment. As a result, they request a highly qualified teaching team and well-designed courses that offer practical experience to successfully handle different situations in their potential professional settings (Johns & Dudley Evans, 1991; Li et al., 2020). The suggestions on having discipline-based materials and integrating work-related experiences in ESP courses align with the requirements for constant analysis and assessment of learners’ needs to sufficiently accommodate their future job demands in designing ESP courses (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Liton, 2015).

The design of ESP courses is suggested with more practical experiences and increased students’ engagement to acquire knowledge and skills relevant to their job demands. However, ESP courses tend to over-rely on materials whose information may not be applicable in different professional settings, making ESP courses content theory-based and irrelevant to different work conditions (Johns & Dudley Evans, 1991; T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019). It is then strongly suggested that ESP students are exposed to authentic materials that are discipline- and context-relevant to represent the circumstances that the learners may confront at work (Johns & Dudley Evans, 1991; T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019). As it may not be feasible to illustrate authentic work environments in ESP classes, organizing field trips to immerse students in a number of authentic work environments that are closely related to students’ future professions is recommended, which may advance their understanding of future workplaces and conditions (Nguyen & Pham, 2016). Through these trips to actual workplaces, students have opportunities to observe the operations of their prospective careers and interact with field specialists in those workplaces. Following that, they can cross-reference with the skills and knowledge that they have gained in their courses and recognize the need to acquire additional knowledge and skills which have not been adequately developed ( T. C. N. Nguyen et al., 2019).

To provide learners with relevant language, knowledge, and skills to their careers, ESP instructors need to be proficient in English language and knowledgeable in the disciplines they are teaching (Gaye, 2020; Nguyen & Pham, 2016). Therefore, ESP instructors need professional development to be well-equipped with specialized language and knowledge (Gaye, 2020; Nguyen & Pham, 2016). These ESP instructors are recommended to partake in training workshops relevant to their teaching areas and undertake experience-sharing sessions with their teaching fellows and disciplinary specialists to advance their understanding of the field (Gaye, 2020; Nguyen & Pham, 2016). In addition, they need to improve their teaching approaches that less focus on test-taking skills and create more work-based scenarios in their classes for learners to apply theoretical knowledge and skills in the course to develop practical work-related experience. Also, innovative teaching practices further require an appropriate form of assessment in ESP courses. Gimenez (1996) suggests process assessment “which evaluates not only students’ “products” but also how they have come to acquire the proficiency needed to produce them” (p. 233). When students are assessed based on their learning process, they may become more active and engaged in classroom activities and devoted to acquiring necessary knowledge and skills to reach the learning outcomes (Gimenez, 1996; Li et al., 2020) and have their participation recognized (Kereković, 2021; B. H. Nguyen et al., 2019).

6 Conclusion

This study explored Vietnamese graduates’ perspectives towards the impacts of ESP courses on their employability. In this study, the graduates acknowledge the usefulness of these courses in the development of major-related language, knowledge, and generic skills that assist their job applications and performances. However, they also indicate the inappropriateness in ESP course design and teaching practices. These limitations refer to the predominance of theoretical knowledge in ESP courses, leaving a shortage of practical experiences. In addition, unfocused content and outdated materials also contribute to the shortcomings in the courses. Given the goal of learning for profession, it is recommended that ESP courses be designed and taught following the assessment of learners’ professional needs along with professional development of teaching agents. Understanding learners’ expectations through learners’ needs analysis for their future employment will inform educators of what needs to be included in the courses and how the content can be distributed to the learners so that they are well-rounded for both theoretical knowledge and practical experiences for their future work. Future research is still recommended with a wide coverage of different agents such as stakeholders, instructors, policymakers, and learners. In addition, in-depth interviews are also necessary to gain insights of these agents for a comprehensive understanding of constituents of employability and how ESP courses could accommodate learners for successful employability.