ESP Course Research Articles

Вдосконалення навичок студентів немовних факультетів з англійської мови (практичний аспект)

The article is devoted to practical aspects of effective development ESP students' skills for tomorrow's challenges. It is stressed that a noticeable shift towards training ESP students in universities, on how to develop global skills, has taken place. Consideration of productive approaches at ESP classes is beneficial. In the article deliberately proved that global skills are not restricted to any particular subject on the curriculum but are transferable across all subjects, ESP in particular. The idea that much better results when ESP is provided through exposure to the language and meaningful communication in combination with systematic studies is provided. Nowadays there is a distinct tendency in which ESP teachers are aware of the importance of meaningful communication, while the rise of technology leads employers towards becoming globally interconnected, so such global skills as interpersonal communication, collaboration, critical thinking, intercultural competence and citizenship, and digital literacy are important for for future specialists. In order to operate in an international context a successful ESP course should have tools to engage students in meaningful conversations with meaningful language as well as to develop global skills. A detailed analysis of global skills and ways how to enhance these skills are given. In the context of improvement of ESP students’ skills, the idea of a learner-centered classroom is considered to be pretty effective as teacher can not only create a learner-centered classroom, but also shift teacher’s classroom position from simple lecturer to a knowledge facilitator. The article is focused on the approaches a teacher should provide to create such kind of classroom. A special attention is payed to authentic learning environment as to important element of a successful ESP course. This element is classified in details from practical point of view.

LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL ESP PRINCIPLES TEACHING IN THE MULTICULTURAL UNIVERSITY GROUPS

Global world requires specialists both to communicate effectively in a multicultural-proficiency-oriented environment and to be able to search, process and share the information within the small groups or big teams of collaborators. Teaching experience proves that the first-year students majority who study in multicultural academic University groups are characterized as underdeveloped skills of communication both in oral and written speech, especially when the different nations representatives and nationalities use the linguistic and extralinguistic means peculiar to the ethical and moral norms. More difficulties arise when foreigners need to communicate the proficiency-oriented or culturally-coloured information via technical devices. The Universities being the establishments for multicultural communities evidently feel the necessity to use each lesson for cultivating cross-cultural awareness of the learners. Forasmuch, being at the University, foreign and Ukrainian students are need to grow professionally and culturally, we developed the technology of teaching ESP aimed at filling in this gap. The technology core is the usage of the linguistic-and-cultural component in tandem with the regular of the ESP course materials. The present article contains the materials and actual facts from the this technology implementation while teaching ESP in off-line and on-line modes. The authors discuss forms and regimes of students’ work, explain the merits of cross-cultural development of each and every individual involved in the process of learning via mutual cooperation. The perspectives of the research are seen in the designing of the ESP course on the theoretical and practical data from the investigation done

Investigating ESP Teachers Perceptions Towards The Possibility Of Implementing Team Teaching In Business English Courses:, The Case Of ESP Teachers At The Faculty Of Economic Sciences, Commerce And Management Sciences At Ghardaia University

This research is conducted to portray the perceptions and views ESP teachers hold towards team teaching and the possibility of implementing this method in their business English courses at the faculty of Economic Sciences, Commerce and Management at the University of Ghardaia. This exploratory study investigates how ESP teachers perceive team teaching as a method of teaching and the extent to which they are apt to cooperate and adopt this approach in future. A group discussion and a questionnaire are used to gather data which are analyzed quantitatively, qualitatively and interpretatively. The results show that the majority of the teachers are apt to adopt this method in their business courses emphasizing that the managerial staff should implement it and provide a special training to avoid any misunderstanding. Key words- team teaching, teachers' perceptions, ESP courses, business English

Challenges of Teaching and Learning Business English in Ukrainian Universities

The English has been widely used and expanded with the globalization of the business world, notably ESP is considered a part of it. This study aims to seek out the challenges of teaching and learning Business English in Ukrainian universities. Considerable experience as Business English teachers at several Ukrainian universities and ongoing contact with colleagues in the professional community of ESP teachers, provides an opportunity to affirm that the results we found in the empirical study are typical for most Ukrainian universities. This assumption was also supported in the discussions with the ESP teachers from different regions of Ukraine during the British Council's “English for Universities” project (2015-2018). Data collection was done by conducting a questionnaire survey for the ESP practitioners that had the issues in teaching ESP course at the Faculty of Economics, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv The findings revealed the challenges that ESP practitioners face, particularly: difference in students’ language competence, course content selection, lack of motivation, in-class hours etc. and possible solutions in overcoming the constraints in teaching. The study suggests that Business English practitioners should develop and improve practical tools for evaluation and certification of results following the requirements and further improvements should be implemented in the methodology and organization of ESP teaching, the content of the course, the course design, the development of course-books and supplementary teaching materials for each specialty.

ESP1 within ESP: the design and implementation of a pronunciation module in a technical English course

This paper focuses on the design and implementation of a ten-week pronunciation module within a university technical English course as part of a broader study that investigates the efficacy of explicit rhythm instruction to improve engineering students’ prosody in English. Sessions were adapted to the course contents and followed Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin's (1996) steps to teach communicatively. The participants were 298 Spanish/Catalan-speaking first-year undergraduate engineering students divided into three experimental groups and three control groups. The experimental groups received explicit rhythm instruction while the control groups did not. They all were recorded before and after the training. Ten sentences were analyzed acoustically and measures of rhythm (VarcoV) were obtained. Preliminary results revealed that students who took rhythm instruction tended to increase their VarcoV values, approaching English rhythm, while the control group showed a volatile behavior. The comparison of the effect sizes of each group’s differences in performance before and after instruction was statistically significant. Findings suggest that rhythm instruction can be beneficial to enhance EFL students’ prosody and that pronunciation can be effectively introduced within an ESP course.

Book Review: English in the Disciplines: A Multidimensional Model for ESP Course Design

Book Review: English in the Disciplines: A Multidimensional Model for ESP Course Design

The alignment between the ESP course materials and the English language used in the hotel setting in Vietnam

This article examines the alignment between the ESP course materials – English for hotel majored students – and the English language used in the hotel setting in Vietnam. English textbooks which were commonly used in the ESP courses for hospitality students were reviewed for the limits on the portion of the written materials in comparison with the English language used by the hotel staff in the real-life setting. Content analysis was adopted for analyzing the course materials, particularly the activities provided for students to practice listening and speaking skills. The findings reveal that the textbooks cover a wide range of activities for students to practice communicative skills. However, most activities were situated in environments that were unfamiliar to students and that might limit students’ ability to meet guests’ needs.

Developing a curriculum model of English teaching for master’s degree nursing education in a Chinese medicine university

ObjectiveEnglish for Specific Purpose (ESP) is the essence for developing scientific research capacity, which is a core component for postgraduate education. The objective of this article is to develop a curriculum model for ESP of Master’s level nursing education in a Chinese medicine university. MethodA three-year action research approach with continuous reflection and modification was used to develop an ESP curriculum based on the RICH model. A total of 78 students of Master’s Science in Nursing enrolled in 2016–2018 and three course teachers in Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine participated in the study. The ESP curriculum based on the RICH model involved research-based learning topics (R), integrated curriculum(I), cooperative learning methods(C), and humanistic outcome (H). ResultsThe passing rate of the students was 100%, the excellent rate was 79.5%, with an average score of 83.16 ± 3.43. All students were satisfied with the ESP course design and acknowledged the process of “growing up under the pressure”. Four students have published five articles in the journals included by Science Citation Index (SCI). ConclusionsThe study exerted a positive effect on the ESP teaching and learning and provided new ideas for the ESP curriculum integration of Master’s Science in Nursing in China.

DESIGN OF AN ART MUSIC RELATED ESP COURSE SYLLABUS IN THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT

In the case of any ESP course, at any level, a careful syllabus design is of critical importance for its successful and purposeful implementation. After the introductory chapters, dealing with the key definitions and issues of ESP and art music related ESP, in the central part of this paper a design of an art music related ESP course syllabus is presented in detail, with the naming and description of all the steps and components included both in the design process and the subsequent practical performance of the course in direct work with students. The entire described process is planned with the full awareness of the contemporary life and circumstances, especially regarding the development of information technologies and information society and the consequences of such a development to the notions and concepts of learning, studying and teaching.

Students’ Perceptions of Blended Learning in Mastering English for Specific Purposes

The blended learning has proliferated in recent years to integrate ICT into ESP instruction. Thus, ESP teachers have to acclimatize the feasibility of the advancement in facilitating English instruction for ESP learners. To this end, the present study assayed the ESP students’ perceptions toward the blended learning in mastering English for specific purposes. In the present study, the qualitative approaches were employed based on the questionnaire data. The data gathered from the questionnaire was gauged by descriptive analyses that utilized SPSS 21. The results show that most students get satisfied and enthusiastic to have blended learning of ESP course. However, the classroom interaction by using English and time management skills should be taken into deep concern by English teachers for developing the ESP blended learning course.

AN EVALUATION OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES COURSES AT A VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY

When English is commonly used in different professional fields and serves as an important communication tool at work, the teaching of English for Specific Purposes at higher education institutions requires more attention. Aiming to increase the effectiveness of ESP education, this study investigates the teaching of ESP courses at a Vietnamese university, evaluating the syllabus, materials, teaching methodology and tests of ESP courses. Data were collected from the questionnaires distributed to 657 ESP students, interviews with 8 ESP teachers and observing ESP lessons delivered by 5 teachers and analysing related documents. Research findings pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the ESP courses and propose practical solutions to improve the effectiveness of the courses. The findings could be used as a reference for other higher education institutions with similar educational contexts in Vietnam.

Designing an English course for tourism at State Amazonian University

The purpose of the investigation were to propose an ESP course for students at “Universidad Estatal Amazonica” in the Department of Life Sciences in Tourism Engineering Puyo, Pastaza- Ecuador. This proposal consists in a Communicative Syllabus with specific topics and grammar structure, which will allow the learners to develop their abilities in English communication. It was organized in four units with the same structure divided into four lessons: a vocabulary lesson, a grammar lesson, a professional lesson and a case study. It was designed to be taught in 64 hours face-to-face and 4 weekly practical hours. he proposal was created to ensure the students get the necessary vocabulary and grammar focused on tourism in English linguistic structures and that they can improve their and oral and written expression speaking as well as them to perform activities related to their field of specialization. As a form of evaluation, the continuous evaluation and final exam were proposed to determine academic progress.

Evaluating the Communicative Materials on ESP Book Entitled English for International Tourism

ESP is designed for a particular group of people in a specific context. The materials used are related to the learners' specialized field of study. One of the factors which is of utmost importance in language learning in general and ESP in particular is to see whether course books and other materials are useful for the purpose of the course or not. The aim of the paper is evaluating the ESP course book entitled English for International Tourism. Cunningsworth’s (1984) checklist is used to evaluate this book. Instead of the authors’ claim this book is communicative, the evaluation result shows that the exercises within the book mainly use drilling task which means it is more structural rather than communicative.

FLIPPED CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES COURSE (ON THE EXAMPLE OF FUTURE MANAGERS OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY)

The article explores the ways of adjusting current system of professional training to modern-day challenges and market requirements to the professional activity of international operations managers.The objective is to clarify the progressive approach to educating future managers of export and import operations based on the flipped classroom principle. For that purpose the following issues need to be specified: the topicality, the efficiency and peculiarities of applying the flipped classroom mode to the content to be acquired by students of the aforementioned specialization over the course of their university studies; to specify the types of teaching materials to be applied in view of their future professional activity, and their further integration into the curriculum; to provide recommendations on developing teaching materials using the latest available platforms and resources. The drastic gap between the teaching materials used in the course of professional training due to lack of hands-on professional experience of the university staff, on the one hand, and on-the-job training specialists receive at the expense of their first employer necessitates theoretical research and designing an ESP course that better fits the needs of a modern workplace. Based on the research of Ukrainian educators who advocate for more focused and productive organization of students’ independent study, the article suggests ways of using modern information technologies and tools to improve students’ self-study experience. The article describes ways of implementing the flipped classroom approach to optimize foreign language training for future international operations managers. The article explores the prospects and peculiarities of using the technology in view of the aforementioned specialization. The types of learning content and materials are studied for their further integration into the course for the purpose of maximum approximation to the professional activity of future specialists. The suggested learning materials derived from professional context, such as document templates, trainings, podcasts, printed and online reading resources, success stories and cases, lectures from free online education platforms are analyzed for their use in preparing teaching materials for a flipped classroom. Education management systems are analyzed for their dual purpose as teaching tools and the elements of modern-day professional activity at international companies. The flipped classroom mode proves to be efficient in optimizing foreign language teaching in the course of educating future managers of export-import operations due to several factors: it provides the professional context, allows to role-play the professional activity of a specialist in a foreign language environment, increases motivation for studying disciplines of specialization, it provides the opportunity to integrate specialized knowledge into the course of foreign language for professional purposes. The learning management platforms that are efficient within the flipped classroom learning are a powerful instrument within the modern corporate environment, which students will be able to use once they find their first job. Since LMS are used mainly in the professional context, further research necessitates cooperation with leading employers, specifying the most common topics and directions of learning and development on the job, selection of those that are most promising for integration into the course of teaching future export-import operations managers, and developing recommendations and courses on learning management platforms.

Evaluation on an ESP Course Book: Get Along with English for the Hotel Industry

This review paper tries to evaluate an ESP course book entitled Get Along with English for the Hotel Industry published by Erlangga in 2006. A course book is considered as a necessary aspect in the classroom. Teachers usually follow the content and activities provided in the course book. ESP teachers often find difficulty in finding the suitable one. As a result, a book review is needed to match teacher and learners’ needs to available solutions. The instrument to evaluate the couse book used Alan Cunningsworth’s checklist taken from his book, Evaluating and Selecting EFL Teaching Materials (1984) consisted of six majors evaluation criteria and one conclusion and overall evaluation. The method of this study was qualitative descriptive to evaluate the current course book based on the guidelines and framework presented in the available checklist of evaluation criteria. The results indicated that the course book can be appropriate for hotel industry students but should be modified in some cases to meet the course objectives and encourage students to use what they learn in their future workplace.The weaknesses found from this book can be a chance for the teachers to develop the incomplete/inappropriate materials better and meet the teachers and students’ needs.

Apprenticing future economists: Analysing an ESP course through the lens of the new CEFR extended framework

Abstract Increasingly, professionally-oriented tertiary institutions are concerned with equipping their students with the English language skills needed in today’s global professional world. The recently extended 2018 Common European Framework (CEFR) provides useful guidance to help institutions develop curricula to achieve this goal. This paper describes an advanced English for Economics course, whose aim is to facilitate economics students’ traversal from student to professional, in terms of English can-dos (mostly B2–C1), as described in the 2018 CEFR Companion Volume. The pedagogy informing the course is three-pronged, drawing on English for Specific Purposes, twenty-first century skills, and the CEFR. We show how analysing such a course through the CEFR can help devise an anticipated learning trajectory for economics students about to enter the professional world. Our analysis highlights the fact that even though the newly extended CEFR does mention plurilingualism in the mediation can-dos, it does so only in terms of individual production. In the twenty-first century language classroom, where plurilingualism is part and parcel of understanding and carrying out the required tasks, much work is carried out in groups, with technology playing a key role in language mediation. We find that group and technology-assisted mediation activities are substantially different to the individually-oriented mediation activities described in the extended framework. Therefore, we suggest fine tuning, and perhaps adding, mediation can-dos to reflect the realities of tertiary pedagogical settings preparing learners for twenty-first century professional environments.

Research on ESP Course Construction and Teaching Mode—An Example of Fashion English for Science and Technology

ESP stands for English for Specific Purposes, including EOP, EAP and EST. Demand analysis is the starting point for ESP curriculum design. In this article some job positions were investigated in terms of the demand for graduates’ English level. In order to improve students’ ability to access scientific and technical information in English, Fashion English for Science and Technology was offered as a public elective course. Based on the cloud space teaching platform, Fashion English for Science and Technology course was established on the homepage. With the cloud class, the EST online course was carried out, and the ESP teaching mode based on networked self-learning has exerted an active effect on ESP teaching.

APPLICATION OF ETYMOLOGY-VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES TO TEACHING FINANCIAL ENGLISH VOCABULARY: A KOREAN EXPERIENCE

It is a common belief that English for Specific Purposes students (herein ESP students) in general, and Financial English students (herein FE students) find it harder than Basic/General English (GE) for a number of reasons, one of which is differences between FE and GE. The paper first identifies the most important factors in teaching FE by clarifying such differences between FE and GE and pointing out peculiarities of FE vocabulary. Then, we share our experience in seeking effective FE vocabulary teaching techniques to overcome our Korean students’ difficulties in the ESP course compared with their GE course. In our efforts, we piloted different techniques which combine etymology and visualization for teaching FE vocabulary, including derivative reasoning technique, monolingual reasoning technique, multilingual reasoning technique, semantic contrast technique, word decomposition technique, and definition grouping technique. We also checked our students’ retention of some FE vocabulary items taught through both traditional and piloted techniques, and initial results manifest that these etymology-visualization techniques promise to be effective. Above all, the paper presents a glimpse of ESP teaching/learning in our country in the hope that what works in our case in Korea can also be effectively applied elsewhere.

Theoretical Framework of ESP: The Major Case Studies in the Hotel Industry and Translation as Necessary Input

The present paper aims at providing a theoretical overview of English for Specific Purposes as one of the major areas of EFL teaching since its beginnings in the 1960s. It presents the developments related with the theoretical aspects concerning ESP and needs analysis as the cornerstone in designing ESP courses in English language teaching and learning. The most influential ESP teaching theories are summarised briefly, beginning with register analysis which paved the way for course designers to design specific courses based on teaching the linguistic features of a language to the urgent need for developing communication and translation. At the end, based on the nature of the hotel industry, the purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to mention some previous case studies related to hotels because most of the linguistic researches conducted by ESP specialists focused in particular on the formal aspects of a language especially in the academic field and neglected the needs of the occupational settings; 2) to discuss the major needs of the employees in hotels and the significance of translation in this industry and therefore proposing possible solutions to overcome any deficiencies.

Needs Analysis as a Measure for the Accuracy of ESP Syllabus Courses in Kurdistan Technical Institutes, Department of Administration as a Case Study

ESP courses are used in all Higher Education institutions in Kurdistan/Iraq. These courses are supposed to provide students with both awareness and skills to handle communication in English in the target subjects. This paper addresses the effect and shortcomings of “Administrative Reading in English’, an ESP course taught in Kurdistan Technical Institutes. The paper examines the extent to which these courses fit the needs of Kurdish students; and whether the curricula of the course reflect the characteristics of a systematic standard ESP course. Data was collected through a questionnaire distributed to three different student groups and interviews were conducted with instructors. The data is used to identify the drawbacks of the course material; and investigate the relevance of the teaching methods, assessment and the language used, to the level, motivation and needs of the students. The research concludes that a solid curriculum that takes into consideration students’ motivation for learning as well as their receptive and productive learning skills has not been correctly constructed for the courses in general.