Specific Purposes Courses Research Articles

STUDENT-GENERATED COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES IN AN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES COURSE

Designing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses is a challenging task. The teacher often has to cope with time constraints, shortage of resources as well as his or her insufficient knowledge of a given field of study. Students enrolled in a course are often consulted about the source of materials for instruction. The process of developing ESP tasks can be made easier and less time-consuming by means of employing student-generated communication activities which draw on learner-based approaches to teaching. The paper contains a collection of student-generated tasks that can be successfully used at the preparatory, follow-up or main stage of an ESP class. In the author’s teaching context on numerous occasions they have triggered lively exchanges between students: discussion, brainstorming, or negotiation. Student-generated activities naturally develop collaboration and autonomy, which are essential in the workplace environment. Just like communication skills, they have to be taught explicitly due to the fact that in the area of soft skills there exist considerable differences at the personal and culture-specific level. Finally, since students’ specialist knowledge is usually much better than that of the teacher, student-generated activities tend to be to the point, up-to date, or more precise with respect to the course objectives.

Assessing Student Reflection in a Malaysian Classroom

Studies into reflective thinking in education have proposed a link between reflection and transformative learning. It is thus important for classroom practitioners to be able to identify whether students are reflecting on the subject matter of an academic course that they are undertaking. To this end, reflective journals can provide valuable information regarding the emotional and cognitive processes of the students. This study seeks to identify the level of reflective thinking attained by final year university students in Sabah, Malaysia, who have enrolled in an English for Specific Purposes course. As a preliminary study of the population, degree students from MARA University of Technology Malaysia were sampled and their reflective journals were analysed. The classification was done using a modified coding scheme proposed by past key researchers to classify students into the three categories of non-reflectors, reflectors, and critical reflectors. The results of this study can provide useful insights to course instructors.

WRITING MATERIAL FOR OFFICE ADMINISTRATION STUDY PROGRAM IN VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL: STUDENTS’ NEED ANALYSIS

Vocational High School is course with aim to prepare the students to have specific skills by having practical activities based on its study program. It has the same purpose with English for specific purposes (ESP) course which aims to meet the students’ specific language need. ESP courses help students to use English appropriately as well as accurately to perform their jobs in a various situations where they encounter their English language function. ESP course often begins with the students’ need. Students’ need analysis is needed to be identified to be able to meet the effective learning material based on what the students really need. This study aims to investigate the writing materials needs of eleventh grade students of Office Administration study program in Vocational High School from viewpoints of students. This study used descriptive qualitative analysis with questionnaire and interview method to collect the data. The subjects of the research were eleventh grade of Office Administration students that consisted of 34 students by using purposive sampling. The result indicated that the students have several needs in terms of target needs and learning needs. Target needs are divided into necessities, wants, and lacks. Based on the result of target needs, the students are lack of component of writing skills including express ideas, write with correct organization, use correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling, and use appropriate vocabulary based on the context of the text. Thus, the students need and want to learn those components of writing skills. Meanwhile, learning needs are divided into input, procedure, setting, and accessibility. The input is divided into content of materials, activities, and design. The teachers should pay attention more on those aspects to fulfill the students’ need to help them transition successfully to their future careers after graduation.

A NEEDS ASSESSMENT APPROACH TO ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES (ESP) BASED SYLLABUS DESIGN IN BANGLADESH VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION (BVTE)

Abstract: This paper describes the initial phase of a needs analysis which is developed in the context of Bangladesh Vocational and Technical Education (BVTE) with the aim to identify the needs of a target group of learners and introduce English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course design. Although the compulsory English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses have been used at various programs of BVTE since 1996, they were not based on any systemic Needs Analysis nor have they been subjected to any evaluation. The paper also aims to conducts a Needs Analysis to obtain data which will be used to develop a meaningful, useful and beneficial, common core ESP programme for Bangladesh Vocational and Technical Board (BVTB) students. This process takes into account the needs of the various stakeholders involved including the policy makers, decision-makers, subject and language teachers and prospective employers. It mainly will make use of Hutchinson and Waters’ (1987) Learning-centred approach, Holliday and Nunan’s (1988) Needs Analysis description for conducting the Needs Analysis and specifying the content for a common-core ESP course. A mix method is adopted with questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, classroom observation and document study being the main data gathering tools, in order to ensure triangulation of data.

Challenges of Grading in an ESP Course

This paper deals with the drawbacks of the existent grading system in the English for Specific Purposes course and the suggested solution to this problem. The main difficulty concerns the fact that in Ukraine the CEFR level is not mentioned in the transcript of the university diploma containing the list of the courses and their grades. This is the reason of impossibility to split students into groups according to their initial level of English language competency and give them an opportunity to develop at an appropriate pace and rate. Thus, we can not completely meet the needs of our students, although satisfying the learners’ needs is the key point in an ESP course. This discrepancy pushed us, ESP practitioners, to reconsider our approach to the grading system in an ESP course. We have suggested a system of level ratio that may be applied while calculating the final grades of the students. The introduction of this system may eliminate the outlined problem and enchance motivation of university students in an ESP classroom. In this paper we have described the mechanism of level ratio application, depicted the advantages of the suggested theory and outlined possible problems that can appear.

Academic literacy for science: a starting point for recurriculation

English for Specific Purposes courses are taught at many universities around the world and also play a critical role in the South African context. There is limited transparency and therefore little agreement regarding what the curricula of such courses should include. The aim of this study was to start a conversation about which academic abilities are essential for academic success by describing and evaluating the proposed outcomes of two academic literacy (AL) courses for science students at a South African university. The courses were examined by comparing the abilities addressed in each course to an extensive checklist of general AL abilities. The four year programme course was found to cover most of these AL abilities sufficiently, but the weight of several features warranted reassessment. The three-year programme course addressed fewer of these AL abilities and the weighting of several AL abilities also needed to be reassessed. The findings suggest that the four-year extended programme course curriculum offers the better AL foundation as it appears to be more successful in sufficiently addressing a variety of AL abilities. Should the learning outcomes of the two programmes be more closely aligned, students from both programmes entering second year would be equally prepared. However, it would seem that both courses would benefit from further analysis, for example feedback from various stakeholders, and consequent recurriculation. Keywords: English for science and technology, English for specific purposes, academic literacy, curriculum development

Corpus-Based Teaching of German Compound Nouns and Lexical Bundles for Improving Academic Writing Skills

This study highlights the problem of the lack of German specialized corpora for German for specific purposes (GSP) courses for engineering students and describes a project aiming at the development of such a corpus, the Kod.ING corpus. The authors show the relevance of the Kod.ING corpus in meeting the needs of Master’s degree engineering students at St Petersburg Polytechnic University who are studying lower-level German. At the preliminary stage of the pedagogical experiment, nine compound nouns and eight lexical bundles were selected from the Kod.ING corpus. These were taught to students through hands-on and hands-off data-driven learning (DDL) activities. The immediate and delayed post-tests proved the effectiveness of short DDL interventions in terms of acquisition of target vocabulary. The follow-up survey revealed students’ particular interest in hands-on activities with the Russian National Corpus (RNC). In conclusion, further research and pedagogical applications are suggested.

ONLINE COURSE DESIGN AND MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHING READING OF RESEARCH ARTICLES TO EFL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AT A GREEK TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

Recent research findings suggest that reading research articles (RAs) enhances undergraduate engineering students’ technical knowledge and fosters their lifelong learning skills. Nevertheless, the RA genre inherently displays challenging features for novice readers, especially EFL readers. Previous works on developing materials for teaching the reading of RAs to undergraduate students are limited and mostly report on the effectiveness of interventions rather than on course design and materials development. This paper presents the design and development of online materials for a Moodle-based, English for Specific Academic Purposes course that aimed to help Greek undergraduate Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) students to learn how to read RAs within their field. The materials design was based on the theories of genre analysis, metacognition and cognitive apprenticeship. Initially, a small RA corpus consisting of thirty RAs from high-ranking ECE journals and conferences from IEEE, ACM, Elsevier and Springer was created in cooperation with the ECE faculty. Subsequently, a move analysis was performed based on a simplified coding scheme of rhetorical moves in the target genre adjusted to the needs of novice Greek EFL readers. The results from our corpus analysis were used as the foundation of the genre-based materials that aimed at fostering learners’ declarative, procedural and conditional genre knowledge and included various examples of move structures and patterns, terminology, grammar as well as weekly genre analysis reflective tasks. We then created materials that intended to provide further support so that students could convert their newly acquired genre knowledge into procedural knowledge and explicitly taught top-down RA expeditious reading strategies and conditional knowledge by including metacognitive strategy training that intended to raise their awareness of when and why they should use the taught strategies. In an attempt to further tailor the materials to the needs of our students we included audiovisual enhancements in both L1 and L2 for presentation and feedback purposes, metacognitive prompts, online dictionaries and concordancers.

The Impact of Feedback in Facebook on Students’ Language Proficiency

Facebook is a wealth of knowledge, which allows group discussion, asking questions, exposing to different perspectives, observing new information, sharing experiences, discovering newness of life, and socio-pragmatic development. It is an open platform for knowledge exchange from scholars with minimum cost but maximum effectiveness. The idea of using Facebook as a learning tool was implemented in an English for Specific Purposes course at a private university. This study was conducted to find out the effects of online feedback in Facebook on students’ language proficiency and investigate their attitudes toward learning through Facebook. Forty participants were selected to take part in the experiment during the first semester of 2017 academic year. Two assignments were a requirement of the course comprising news writing and news reading. In each assignment, scores were given to students’ practice and real performance. The study employed feedback offered by teacher and peers in Facebook as a tool to develop students’ proficiency. The findings reveal that there were statistically significant improvements in the revised writing draft and news reading which were linked to peers and teacher feedback. An enormous decrease in making mistakes indicated that students used the comments to improve their performances. In addition, the replies from an open-ended questionnaire indicated positive attitudes toward the use of Facebook as a learning tool. However, several disadvantages along with suggestions are useful for future course development.

Students’ Needs and Vocabulary Development in English for Specific Purposes Course

<p><em>Vocabulary is very important for language learners. Limited knowledge of vocabulary can cause problems in language learning, especially in English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Students’ needs on English vocabulary should be invested for learning achievement. The research study was conducted with all students registering in an ESP course, English for Food and Beverage Service. The total number was 54 students: 48 females and 6 males. Three instruments were employed: first and post-activity questionnaires, task assignment, and a vocabulary test. The food lists in the questionnaires fall into five groups: herbs, spices, and food seasonings; vegetables; fruits; meat and poultry; fish and shellfish. Vocabulary list with more than 50% chosen as needed in each food group from the first questionnaire distributed at the beginning of the course were used to create a test on students’ vocabulary knowledge. Two most chosen food groups for vocabulary knowledge development were herbs, spices, and food seasonings group (98.1%) and fish and shell fish group (96.3%). Fish and shellfish list was the only group indicated as a very great problem for the students (48.1%). Vocabulary test results showed the lowest score of 0/23 while the highest score is 22/23 from fish and shellfish group list. </em><em>Mean of the fish and shellfish food list is 10.80 which is the lowest mean among the five group lists on the vocabulary test.</em><em> 63% of the students admitted that task assignment responded to their needs of English food vocabulary development.</em><em></em></p>

A Comparative Study of Form-Focused and Communicative Methods of Language Teaching in ESP Courses

Summary The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the use of communicative methods and form-focused methods as implemented in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. To accomplish this, two groups of management students were selected for the study. Each group consisted of 30 participants. Their level of proficiency in English and their subject matter knowledge were tested through a sample of IELTS and a pre-test. The two groups were at the same level of proficiency in both general English and English for Students of Management before receiving treatment in 20 sessions within a period of 75 days. Participants in Group A received a form-focused method with some occasional uses of their L1. In Group B, however, the participants were exposed to a communicative ESP course which exclusively relied on English the L2. After the period of treatment, the two groups were examined via a post-test. Results showed that Group B was more successful in the post-test. Moreover, the learners who were proficient in English and the subject matter achieved more from the communicative methods of language teaching in the ESP course. Findings imply that the nature of the subject matter, or whether it is theoretical or applied, could be a factor in deciding a method of language teaching for ESP courses.

Curriculum Design and Teaching Practice of ESP: A Case of Electric Power English at NEEPU

The value of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses lies in the fact that it is in essence a practical educational activity addressing certain specific needs. This paper carries out a descriptive case study of an ESP course “Electric Power English” offered in Northeast Electric Power University, which deals with the aspects of curriculum design and teaching practice. This paper reports the development of a curriculum comprised of English for General Purposes (EGP) courses, bridging EGP courses and ESP courses, and aims at giving some inspiration for the solution of common problems in ESP teaching practice.

What do nurses say about their English language needs for patient care and their ESP coursework: The case of Taiwanese nurses

In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis on the delivery of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses to improve the English proficiency of nursing professionals in Taiwan. To support this effort, the aims of this research paper are twofold: to develop an understanding of nurses' English needs and challenges related to clinical nursing practice and to explore nurses' perspectives on ESP courses provided to them, with a focus on whether the courses reflect their actual English needs and challenges. This research adopts a qualitative approach, using data from two groups of participants: a group of nine nurses who participated in interviews and a group of 10 nurses who were observed in the workplace. All of these nurses worked in a large-scale hospital with an international care center in Taiwan. The findings revealed that the participants needed effective communication skills in English to build trusting nurse–patient relationships and provide quality nursing care. However, they experienced English communication difficulties in the areas of vocabulary, pronunciation, and accent, and developed negative strategies to cope with these challenges. The nurses considered their ESP courses ineffective, although somewhat useful, because the content failed to meet their language needs and challenges.

The Effect of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) on Reading Comprehension in English for Specific Purposes Courses

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) has potential to help language learners; however, it has received scant attention. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of NLP techniques on reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners at an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course. To achieve this goal, two intact classes of students were selected to form an experimental group (n=30) and a control group (n=30). A reading pretest (based on the course content) was given to all participants. The sensory learning styles of the participants were diagnosed using Reid's (1987) leaning style questionnaire, and the participants in the experimental group were familiarized with NLP techniques to be able to implement these techniques in their reading. In the control group, the conventional approach to teach ESP reading was used. Considering the analysis of posttest results through ANCOVA, it was found that implementation of NLP techniques can have significant effect on reading comprehension of Iranian undergraduate EFL learners. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

On Creating an English for Specific Purposes Course for Pharmacy

In fall 2016, the School of Pharmacy reached out to the Applied English Center to create an English class for pharmacy students who speak English as an additional language (EAL). The English for specific purposes (ESP) pilot course would target English for the community pharmacy setting. The idea behind the course was to help EAL students who have succeeded in the classroom but need to adjust their pronunciation and oral grammar to be more comprehensible to local Kansas patients.

On Creating an English for Specific Purposes Course for Pharmacy

In fall 2016, the School of Pharmacy reached out to the Applied English Center to create an English class for pharmacy students who speak English as an additional language (EAL). The English for specific purposes (ESP) pilot course would target English for the community pharmacy setting. The idea behind the course was to help EAL students who have succeeded in the classroom but need to adjust their pronunciation and oral grammar to be more comprehensible to local Kansas patients.

Ambiguities in English Language Teaching: Designing English for Specific Purposes Courses for a Discipline-Specific Context

The need for English language teaching to address specific language needs for a discipline has instigated growing demands for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses in higher education institutions in Malaysia. In the context of a university which focuses on engineering programmes, monitored by an engineering professional body, ESP courses designed and developed for higher education are expected to include learning outcomes which reflect integration between English language and engineering fields. In other words, these English language courses need to address the language needs in the engineering field. Thus, English language educators within this context need to have relevant knowledge and skills to enable them to design and develop appropriate ESP courses. Questions arise in relation to how English language courses developed have addressed this expectation. This paper examines the extent to which this expectation is translated into the ESP courses at one technical university in Malaysia. The findings showcase how this expectation is disseminated to the English language educators. This paper provides insight into the complex process of designing English language courses that could address the language needs of the engineering field. In addition, this paper highlights aspects to consider when designing an ESP course for a specific discipline.

A Study of EFL Curriculum of China’s Science and Technology Institutes under Graded Teaching Model

Recent years, most universities and colleges have been reforming the English as a foreign language (EFL) curriculum system in China. Some reformed EFL curriculum into English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses, for instance, while some conducted a graded teaching model in EFL teaching. However, the effect of this reform was not so good, especially at science and technology institutes. Therefore, in view of different opinions to classification of foreign language teaching, the classification scheme of English teaching was improved and rebuilt at first, based on the analysis of the learners’ feedback from the perspective of learner’s needs on the current EFL curriculum system of China’s science and technology institutes under graded teaching model. And then a new EFL curriculum system of China’s science and technology institutes under graded teaching model was designed based on learning-centered approach to course and curriculum design to promote the development of EFL teaching and China’s ESP courses and accordingly meet nation’s needs for cultivating international and integrated high-quality talents of foreign languages.

Redefinisani pristup ocenjivanju studenata zasnovan na pisanju eseja u nastavi engleskog za posebne namene

Fierce competitiveness of admission to highly respected universities and companies has created the need to evaluate and profile successful candidates. Traditional evaluation of candidates involving their grades is no longer satisfactory and does not provide a clear image of a candidate. There should be a way to profile a candidate and predict one’s success ranging from a success in a course to a working position. Our research aimed to study potential correlations of students’ writings and their revision exam grades acquired in English for Specific Purposes courses. 203 university engineering students submitted their introductory essays for the computational (LIWC) and statistical (SPSS) analysis. The results showed that the higher achievers used more scholarly vocabulary and verbose sentences. They were task-oriented thinking in a categorical way. On the other hand, the lower achievers used less complex sentences and were other-oriented, demonstrating a verbal dynamic style. However, stereotypical behaviour was only exhibited by the male students, i.e. due to societal pressure, the female students put more effort into their task completion, compensated for the lack of knowledge attempting to establish themselves in the male-dominated field.

Identifying and teaching target vocabulary in an ESP course

With an increasing need for teaching discipline‐specific language to second language (L2) learners, language instructors are tasked with a challenging objective to target the vocabulary that is necessary for students to understand and produce discipline‐specific discourse. To meet this objective, language corpora and corpus software have been used extensively to examine the vocabulary demands of commercial textbooks and research articles as well as to enhance students' language‐learning experiences (Hsu, ; Mudraya, ; Ward, ). This article describes how to develop teaching materials for L2 vocabulary instruction using corpus‐based techniques. Focusing on a case study from an introductory engineering course, the authors demonstrate how freely available software programs (e.g., AntConc, Range, Compleat Lexical Tutor) can be used to identify and select relevant vocabulary items. The authors discuss the three types of vocabulary that might be targeted in an English for specific purposes course (technical, semitechnical, and nontechnical words) and explain the principles employed to guide the vocabulary selection process (i.e., keyness and frequency of words and their distribution in the materials). Finally, drawing on Nation's () framework of word knowledge, the authors provide an overview of several corpus‐informed activities developed for teaching vocabulary in engineering.