Training Engineering Students for Understanding Special Subjects in English: The Role of the Online Component in the Experimental ESP Course

Abstract

The article is devoted to the role of the online component of the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course, which was designed as a joint interdisciplinary project between the teachers of ESP and the lecturer of Database Systems (DB) course, which has been delivered in English to the 3rd year students of High School of Cyberphysical Systems and Control of SPbPU since 2016. The ESP course enabled the developers to achieve a higher degree of professional focus than conventional ESP textbooks provide. This paper focuses on the design of the course syllabus, its organization in LMS MOODLE, and analysis of the two year approbation of both experimental ESP course and Database Systems course given in English. Although the results of the first year ESP course approbation were successful, the survey conducted at the end of the first year teaching DB course in English highlighted some problem zones. This resulted in modifying the way of teaching the ESP course during the second year approbation. In particular, some elements of the flipped classroom methodology were introduced with the aim of allocating more time for discussing complex concepts of the discipline in class so the students become familiar with them in advance while doing their homework. The results of the survey conducted at the end of the second year approbation as well as the results of the second year DB course acquisition are discussed. Authors conclude that online component of the experimental ESP course makes it more flexible, allows adopting it to changing requirements of DB course lecturer which can be achieved only in case of close interdepartmental cooperation. Future work plan is outlined.