Abstract
Teaching English in higher institutions is becoming more challenging in this globalised era. With the demand for communication skills in English as one of the important recruitment criteria, future graduates need to be equipped with sufficient English language and communication abilities relevant for their respective fields. This suggests that English language educators need to teach specialised English language such as engineering which may be beyond their expertise. Having trained as English as a second language educators, most of them may have limited knowledge in engineering. This paper is part of a larger research that explores the development of cross-disciplinary curriculum. This study examined the extent to which English language educators addressed the language needs of engineering students academically and professionally. A total of ten language educators from two Malaysian public universities participated in a focus group where they discussed their teaching practices and experiences in teaching engineering students. In addition, six English for Specific Purposes (ESP) practitioners from European universities were also interviewed to obtain information regarding the practices in teaching ESP at their universities. The results show that there is a gap between the development of engineering students' English language abilities in English language classrooms and its maintenance in engineering classrooms in Malaysia. The study highlights the key considerations to develop a framework that scaffolds the development of English language abilities and communication skills among engineering students within engineering education.
Highlights
English language teaching in higher education has shifted from teaching general English which focuses on grammar and language structure, to specific English which focuses on language usage in contexts [1]
In scaffolding the development of their English language and communicative abilities, engineering students need to be able to see the relevance of these skills in their field of study
This requires all stakeholders, the English language instructors to provide meaningful English language learning where students can relate what they learn in an English language classroom to their field of study
Summary
English language teaching in higher education has shifted from teaching general English which focuses on grammar and language structure, to specific English which focuses on language usage in contexts [1]. English language teaching and learning needs to be content-based rather than mere language input classrooms [2]. Recent development in English language teaching in higher education institutions has shown a growing demand for the integration of language and content, focusing on communicative competence [3,4,5]. Structuring teaching and learning that integrates language and content can be challenging. Arnó-Maciàand Mancho-Barés [6] examined the implementation of content and language integrated learning in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classrooms. The purpose of this approach was to improve students' English language proficiency by learning language in context. The main issue raised through this study is the challenge for ESP practitioners to balance between content and language in their teaching
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