ESP Course Research Articles

ԳՈՐԾԱՐԱՐ ԳՐԱՎՈՐ ԿԱՐՈՂՈՒԹՅՈՒՆՆԵՐԻ ԶԱՐԳԱՑՈՒՄԸ ՄԱՍՆԱԳԻՏԱԿԱՆ ԱՆԳԼԵՐԵՆԻ ԴԱՍԸՆԹԱՑՈՒՄ / DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS WRITING SKILLS IN THE COURSE OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

The article touches upon the characteristics of the development of business writing skills in the ESP course. For this purpose, a number of practical assignments aimed at the development of business writing skills of the learners have been elaborated and introduced.

How To Design Effective Esp Courses:, A Theoretical Support For ESP Teachers

How To Design Effective Esp Courses:, A Theoretical Support For ESP Teachers

ESP Students’ Satisfaction with Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ukraine

This study aims to determine the level of ESP students’ satisfaction with online ESP learning courses at three faculties of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The current study examines students’ answers to identify their satisfaction in ESP online courses. The study’s research questions were divided into four categories: the effectiveness of online ESP learning, the availability of learning material used by ESP instructors, the evaluation of ESP teachers’ results, the effectiveness of online testing, and students’ difficulties with ESP distance learning. A descriptive statistical method was used to validate the study. The statistics package JASP was used for data analysis. The authors chose observation, literature analysis, a questionnaire provision, and descriptive data analysis as the research tools. The study results show that students are primarily pleased with ESP courses taught online, students fulfil the expected progress in ESP learning performance. It is revealed that the main problems that influence and impact online ESP learning during COVID-19 are related to technical, academic, and communication challenges. Student satisfaction surveys may lead to changes in ESP online learning activities that may, in turn, boost students’ outcomes. The results provide valuable insight into students’ satisfaction with online learning and pose practical questions for its implementation. As a result, this study is just a preliminary attempt at offering considerate analysis to Ukraine’s policymakers.

Teaching ESP course for the students of different language competency who are majoring in cybersecurity

Teaching ESP course for the students of different language competency who are majoring in cybersecurity

Nova virtuelna stvarnost - percepcije i iskustvo nastavnika i studenata u vezi sa onlajn-nastavom i učenjem engleskog jezika

An invisible, yet cruel virus has made the entire world face a new reality. Regardless of the degree to which online communication had already been used in educational settings before the Covid-19 pandemic, almost no one working in education had a feeling of being ready to work in the new circumstances. The process of migration to emergency remote language teaching and learning was stressful for all stakeholders in education - management, lecturers, students and their parents. Relying on the reflective and descriptive methods, the paper investigates the advantages and disadvantages of digital tools and platforms for remote collaborative learning, primarily ZOOM, Microsoft Teams, Jitsi Meet, and online learning management systems, recognised by the students and teachers within the mandatory and elective General English, ESP and EMI courses at the Teacher Education Faculty, University of Belgrade and Belgrade Metropolitan University. We conducted qualitative research by using structured and unstructured interviews and monitoring students' collaborative work. In the conclusion, the paper emphasises the aspects of educational technologies which have proved to be beneficial for everyone included in the process, without limiting the creativity, development of thinking skills and investigative spirit of students and lecturers while learning and teaching English.

How to Adapt Your ESP Course to E-Learning Resources and Tools

The goal of this paper is to present a range of e-learning resources and tools and give proposals, ideas, or tips for their application in designing your ESP course. With the sudden uprise of applications (apps) available that encourage teaching and learning English, I have thought of adapting my ESP courses to these online resources to arouse my students’ interests and needs. Since traditional face to face interactions are no longer possible today due to COVID-19, I have started adjusting my ESP course by using some interactive tools such as digital images, discussion boards, document sharing, electronic portfolios, social networking, and news feeds to improve my students’ language skills. The teaching and learning proposals are provided to encourage an introspective, deliberate approach to the use of each technology tool within your ESP context.

Effects of Integrating Literary Texts in Enhancing the Quality of Academic Writing of University Students in Bahrain

The research explored the effects of integrating literary texts on the writing performance of selected university students. It also documented the attitudes of the university students on the integration of literary texts in their regular writing course and their perceptions on the difficulties they encounter in the writing process. These research objectives were rationalized by the need to address the writing difficulties by applying theoretical assumptions and addressing the empirical gaps of previous studies on the effectiveness of literature as a rich resource in developing language competence. The research participants were composed of first year business students who were enrolled in an ESP course in one of the universities in Bahrain. Each group was composed of 35 students with an equal distribution of male and female participants. A mixed method approach was used to address the core research questions with the primary application of an experimental design. The results revealed that literary text integration is effective in improving the academic writing performance of the university student-participants as indicated by the statistical test, wherein the experimental group (m = 3.35) had a higher level of improvement than the control group (m = 2.93) in terms of their overall writing performance after the intervention. The student-respondents had a positive attitude towards the integration of literary text in their regular writing course. Writing difficulties included the process of writing the introduction, body, conclusions of their academic writing tasks, use of relevant vocabulary communicative achievement, organization, and language use. It was recommended that language teachers should incorporate literary texts that are related to the writing lessons. Educational administrators and leaders may revisit the curriculum and use the empirical results in developing a more relevant language curriculum especially in the area of writing instruction where literary texts could be integrated.

INTENTIONAL VS INCIDENTAL ESP VOCABULARY ACQUISITION BY POLITICAL SCIENCE STUDENTS

The article discusses an experiment that researched the intentional vs incidental ESP vocabulary uptake in two university groups of third year political science students and addresses the implications of using an authentic audiovisual material as an input text for an ESP course. The procedure of intentional vocabulary learning involved pre-teaching of lexical items and explicitly informing the students they would have to use the vocabulary in a following productive activity (writing an essay), while the incidental uptake took place in the course of self-study where the students had to watch an authentic audiovisual recording and then write an essay on the subject discussed in the video. The case study employed a quantitative research method to calculate the amount of the target words and collocations used in the written output, and a qualitative method to assess the accuracy of their usage. Two months later a delayed posttest was done to check the students’ productive knowledge of the target lexis form. The experiment correlated with output- and involvement load hypotheses, and had to assess the effect of a text-based output on learning outcomes, as well as observe how applicable is the involvement load hypothesis to analysing the students’ self-study strategies. The study showed that the intentional mode of learning outperformed the incidental acquisition by over 20% and suggested what factors may have enhanced the scope of the ESP vocabulary retention. Further studies could concentrate on evaluating ESP learners’ both productive and receptive target vocabulary competence over a longer-term perspective.

The university language centre as an open-badge issuer: New directions in ESP assessment and accreditation

Abstract In the present article, we demonstrate the utility of Open Badge certifications in documenting ESP, EAP and EMI courses. Open Badges are online records of achievement which document field-specific, soft and technical skills. They consist of a visual image and a set of embedded metadata, they are endorsed by the institution which issues them and are recognized at an international level. The information packaged within the badge image file is provided in an open source format and can be shared on social media platforms, as part of an online e-portfolio, as a link on an electronic CV, and on the platform which hosts the Badge. As of 2019, Turin University Language Centre offers Badges in “English for the Social Services” (B1 and B2), “English for Administrative Purposes” (A2, B1 and B2), “Academic Writing and Presentation Skills” (B2 and C1) and “English Medium Instruction” (B2 and C1). We will argue that Open Badge certifications are particularly suited to ESP, since they provide a record of specific hard and soft skills and of innovative teaching and learning practices which go undocumented in conventional certifications and on academic transcripts. We will emphasize the “glocal” quality of these certifications, inasmuch as they are internationally recognized awards tailored by local providers in response to local demands. We will suggest that this perspective is valuable for ESP training. Although ESP learners need to be able to share their credentials on international platforms, using a common language, it is important that we do not lose sight of the specific characteristics of professional activities at a local level. We will further argue that the University Language Centre is, in many ways, ideally suited to issue these kinds of certification.

A Developmental Step in the Right Direction: The Case for Concept-Based Instruction in the Omani ESP Classroom

This article reports on the results of action research conducted in a university ESP classroom in Oman. The impetus for this research was the practitioner’s dissatisfaction with the current practice of introducing the grammatical concept of the English passive and its subsequent results. Framed within the sociocultural theory of cognitive development, this paper investigates the effectiveness of concept-based instruction (CBI). As a pedagogical approach, CBI targets a learner’s internalization of the concept of a language constituent that assists the learner with the meaning making abilities of sentences where the English passive is used. Twenty-two university students enrolled in an ESP course participated in the study. The data was collected through the teacher’s observations, students’ artifacts, and students’ feedback on the effectiveness of CBI. Data analysis reveals the effectiveness of CBI in heightening learner awareness of the concept of a language constituent, developing learner knowledge of the English passive, and improving their meaning-making abilities at the phrasal and sentential levels.

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.

Flipped classrooms: Using Google Groups to facilitate in-class communication

Foreword This report describes two mandatory one-semester ESP courses (English for International Relations) offered to second- and third-year undergraduates at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) enrolled in the selective “international relations” track. The second-year course deals with topics related to jobs in international relations and the third-year course with topics related to recent issues in international relations and diplomacy. The common objecti...

Teaching mediation skills at technology-enhanced ESP classes at technical universities

Mediation is a new trend in the language teaching methodology that has been disregarded at English language classes at technical universities. While teaching ESP students is crucial to develop and improve their complex communicative competence, it should not be limited to reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills because reallife communication involves more sophisticated language skills such as mediation. Linguistic mediation is a dual-nature phenomenon with cognitive and linguistics domains. The present study demonstrates some practical recommendations on how to implement mediation teaching into ESP courses with the integration of online educational technologies. Our study was carried out among ESP teachers at a technical university and outlines the findings of an empirical study on teachers’ perception of language mediation. Our evidence-based findings and personal experience confirm that mediation can enrich the ESP syllabus and bridge the gap between the university and real professional life.

A TEFL-Based Analysis of the Egyptian EFL Students' Production of Refusal and Acceptance Speech Acts

Abstract T he present study measured the Egyptian EFL students' FL pragmatic competence in producing the refusal speech act. It aimed to determine the types of refusal strategies adopted by the Egyptian EFL students. In this regard, data were collected from 60 Egyptian EFL students. Participants were divided into two groups with 30 students each. Group A comprised students who are majoring in English and enrolled at the Department of English whereas group B included students who studied English as an ESP course at the Department of Tourism. Data were collected using a 12-item Oral discourse completion task (Oral DCT) questionnaire. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics like frequencies, mean scores and percentages. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted as well to judge statistical significance between contextual variables and categories of refusal and acceptance strategies. Findings indicated that Egyptian EFL learners varied in adopting acceptance strategies, however they tended to use similar strategies for refusing invitations. The study emphasizes the needs of teaching pragmatic behavior to Egyptian EFL tertiary students. Social contextual variables were found to have statistically significant influence on the selection of refusal and acceptance strategies adopted by Egyptian EFL students.

The Impact Of A Sytematic Approach In Developing An ESP Course

This article outlines a few modern methods and approaches in teaching ESP. ESP nowadays is a major and important part of English language teaching. The importance of needs analysis in developing curriculum for ESP course has been described. The cause of EMI growth globally has been analyzed and the usage of the modern technologies in today's classroom is discussed.

Need Analysis of English Material for Vocational School of Health: A Case Study at One School at Karanganyar

This research aims to identify the students’ prospective professional need in learning English writing skills, to identify the style of learning that students preferred in learning English writing skills, and to reveal the incompetent that students need to improve in writing. This study required stratification that minimizes sampling errors to zero level. In this study, the 140 students from the second grade were chosen to be the participant. The questionnaire was used to be instruments to get the responses from the students about the learning needs. This study found that students need writing sentences correctly in learning English writing. The style of learning that students needed to learn English writing skills was in a small group more than group work. The topic that students preferred in learning is the topic about health as their background school is health, nursing, and pharmacy program. Students actually needed to learn English by themselves. The idea expansion was incompetent that students need to improve in writing. It is hoped that all these needs analyzed can be taken into attentiveness in increasing an ESP course for students.

A Case for Communicative Language Testing for ESP Courses for Undergrad Business Students

A Case for Communicative Language Testing for ESP Courses for Undergrad Business Students

OPTIMISING ASSESSMENT SYSTEM IN THE ESP COURSE THROUGH THE USE of THE METHODS OF DIFFERENTIAL ITEM FUNCTIONING AND DIFFERENTIAL TEST FUNCTIONING IN FINAL TEST DESIGN

The purpose of the research was to examine how the use of the methods of Differential item functioning and Differential test functioning contribute to the quality of the final assessment (FT-ESP) in the English for Specific Purposes course delivered to the graduate students at tertiary institutions. The study relies on two interventions intended to identify the correlation between the test design and the academic performance of the students in the ESP course through using Pearson’s correlation coefficient of the answered versus the unanswered questions. The first intervention test was similarly structured as the one for the second intervention and consisted of the same number of items. In the first intervention, a regular final ESP test was administered. In the second intervention, the originally designed test, which validity and reliability was analyzed using the methods of DIF and DTF, was performed. The test included three sub-domains such as: reading comprehension (15 items), structure (15 items), and compositional analysis (15 items). It has been found that the use of the methods of DIF and DTF boosts the quality of the assessment system in the ESP course delivered to the graduate students at tertiary institutions. It is advisable that the first step in DIF analyses be related to the use of statistical methods to detect the DIF items. It is also advisable to examine the effects of other potential factors on DIF such as item order and mother tongue effects along with unintended content specific factors to explain DIF effect in the context of language testing. The findings also imply that neither of methods addresses the issue of measurement bias, which might occur in tests, because it is complicated and cannot be addressed adequately using simple statistical or classical test theory methods. Further studies are needed to identify the ways of improving the assessment of speaking skills of the graduates of the tertiary institutions.

Algerian Aeronautics Professionals’ Needs Taxonomy: A Target Situation Needs Analysis

This research paper provides a primary thorough needs analysis process for Algerian aeronautics leaners and novice professionals at Aures Aviation Academy. The literature review shed light upon the International Civil Aviation Organization linguistic requirements and the current state of the ESP course at the academy. Accordingly, a hypothesis was set as a tentative answer for two research questions. The process was undertaken via collecting data by administering two questionnaires, two semi-structured interviews and a non-participant classroom observation procedure. The analyzed data were taken into account to answer the research questions through triangulation in data collection methods and sources of information to validate the research outcomes.

The Impact of ESPZ on Students of Physical Education and Sports, University of Prishtina

This paper investigated the current situation in regard to BA and MA English language courses taught at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports (PES) at the University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina.” The empirical research aimed to collect qualitative data by interviewing ten MA students of the same faculty. The findings revealed that it was their BA syllabus that contributed to their poor grasp of sports vocabulary in the context of the English language given that they were subjected to General English (GE) only. Unfortunately, their first contact with English for sports was in their first year of MA studies. Although the ESP course was only one semester, it had a positive impact on students’ advancement. Moreover, students deemed ESP as a great way of building up their personality as sportsmen, given that it facilitated their way of approaching sports science with greater enthusiasm and effort.