Materials and their use; planning a lesson.

Engineering texts might be too boring to generate motivation; what is needed is probably handicrafts, describing a mechanism and in general able to meet the following prerequisites:

· It should be relatively new to your students;

· It should be somehow related to the field;

· It should allow for attainment of new lexis;

· It should preferably deal with a specific problem (e.g. whether the device described would work or not; science popular magazines are ideal for the purpose

· Testing is aimed at awareness or understanding level; it is ideal when the text is necessary for follow-up projects, hands-on tasks, extensive round table discussions etc.

Motivation factors directly depend on analysis of prior learning experience (number and professional competence of teachers, opportunities for out-of-class experience, subject knowledge. ESP is intrinsically integrative.

When and where will ESP take place is no small consideration, same as whether it is concurrent with need for English (EAP) or whether it is sort of investment (EVP). EAP is always safer since 3-5 years pre-need doesn’t guarantee that competences will be preserved; so we should ensure at least that English sources are used in course papers and diploma works and lay a heavy emphasis upon systematic subject field upgrade (see work with Internet sources).

While planning for goals, one might set them as desirable, but they may prove unreachable in terms of the particular course. We should aim at skills and strategies which would go on developing after the ESP course. Its aim is not to provide a specified corpus of linguistic knowledge but to make the learners become better processors of info.

Needs analysis, if based on language or skills centered approach, reveals that ESP students need English in order to be able to read texts in their subject specialism. They do not have to write, speak or listen to English. But consider this:

a) Can the other skills and competencies help the learners to become better readers? (e.g. logical stress and modulated reading support better mastery of the content; creating rich images and writing (collages, graphs, associograms ) works to the same end.

b) There is always a problem of variety: a monoskill focus leads to lack of variety , a limited range of content and induces boredom in the learners.

c) Attitude of learners might vary through the course.

Technically it means following a number of broad recommendations:

· Avoid assembly line approach, which makes every unit look the same, with the same type of text, same kind of illustrations, same type and number of exercises (exactly what we find in most ESP course-books);

· Ensure frequent reinforcement, so that the same items are processed several times from several angles;

· Linguistics is not prevalent in ESP – for a doctor or an engineer it has little attraction.

Materials should provide a coherent framework for the integration of various aspects of learning, allowing for variety and creativity. As to background knowledge – students might lack technical language even in Russian. Topics should be chosen on a broader basis: e.g. ophthalmology – on optics, biology and sociology; psychology – on biology. Texts should necessarily be processed by the students so that the result is systemized, abridged, personal texts.

You know that genuine communication in EGP is based on creating 3 main types of gaps: information, reasoning and opinion; in ESP we should make broader use of: media gaps – transforming the text from one media to another; jigsaw gaps which foster compilation tasks and certainty gaps (What is definitely known? What can be presupposed? What info is entirely unavailable?)

As to variety, it’s still all the more important since monoskill syllabuses often prevail. Sources might be found in:

a) Variety of medium – text, tape, pictures, speech;

b) Variety of class organization; variety of learner roles – presenter, evaluator, receiver, thinker, negotiator;

c) Variety of activity;

d) Variety of skills: in many ESP classes graphic skills are singled out along with the other 4;

e) Variety of topic;

f) Variety of focus – accuracy, fluency, discourse, structure of the text, pronunciation, etc.

Due attention in ESP courses should be given to prediction. Prediction is use of existing knowledge, of a pattern or system in order to anticipate what is likely in a novel situation. It has a number of pedagogic advantages, such as building learner confidence, enabling the teacher to discover gaps in the knowledge, and especially giving students a chance for ‘self-investment’. When people are making predictions, they are investing part of their self-esteem in their decisions and choices.

Coherence is another key position. It is risky to rely on ‘remember what we did the previous time’. Every class should be comparatively autonomous, complete and product-oriented. It should be clear for every party at the start where the lesson is going.

Teaching one-to-one in ESP; basic principles:

ESPis often conducted in form of one-to-one classes (индивидуальное репетиторство). This is a situation potentially challenging since the student is often higher in status, has more professional experiences and well developed ideas about the course – how, when and what for he is to be trained. In order to collaborate usefully and yet not to give in to your client’s ideas which are often unrealistic or vague, follow at least some of the recommendations below:

1. Be prepared to take on different roles. Talk to colleagues if you are feeling stressed by being a ‘counsellor’. We can guarantee other teachers will have similar experiences.

2. Set clear goals. It is important to set long and short term objectives which include types of activities such as reading, role-plays, watching videos as well as language points. Also do feedback regularly to check if these goals have been met. The student then has a list of achievements and an opportunity to review things they are still not sure of. You can also get feedback on types of activities they have enjoyed. Try to do this once a month.

3. Do a thorough needs analysis.

4. Embark on learner training from the start of the course, emphasising how they can improve through better learning strategies.

5. Why throw out all of the good things you do with groups, like drilling, games, standing up to do a dialogue and so on? Students in one-to-one classes can enjoy this too. It could be argued that they need it even more, especially if monotony is setting in. At the very least, change the room around and change your sitting positions from time to time.

6. To combat the strain of extensive, unnatural periods of concentration and interaction for both parties, go and get a coffee or have a walk for a few minutes while your student reads or does some other individual activity. They’ll probably appreciate the time out too!

7. Take notes openly. Explain why you are doing it. This could be for correction purposes or for things to address in future classes or good things they have said you want to reinforce. The student will enjoy the fact that you are paying attention to their language problems.

8. Take part in pair work activities - be student B. This can be a great listening exercise for the student as well as a speaking activity.

9. Communicate with other teachers who are doing similar teaching to you. If you are using published ELT material organise idea sharing sessions with other teachers on how to adapt coursebooks and supplementary material.

10. Take time to discuss real concerns of the student. Depending on your relationship, it’s a great opportunity to talk about things which are meaningful for them such as family, stress at work, their plans and goals. You’ll find that students often come out with their best English if what they are talking about is real to them. Teach the person not the material!

Testing:achievement tests within ESP should meet the following prerequisites:

1. They should include prediction as well as understanding – they test what ESP should teach, e.g. producing descriptions how equipment works; checking comprehension of a passage is not the adequate way of testing in this case.

2. They should be integrated tasks.

3. The subject knowledge should neither obstruct nor give unfair advantage.

4. The test doesn’t test subject specific vocabulary, but rather the ability to exploit such vocabulary within a context of general vocabulary – e.g. the learners should extract the specific names from the diagram and use them in their description.

5. It tests written production.

Role of the ESP teacher:

Dudley Evans and St. John (1998) identify five key roles for the ESP

practitioner:

teacher

course designer and materials provider

collaborator

researcher

evaluator.

The key problem here is whether the ESP teacher needs to understand the subject matter of ESP materials? What kind of knowledge is required from him? The only answer to this is: if teachers are unable to operate highly specialized texts they should not be used. What is required is a positive attitude towards ESP content, where there are personal preferences and limitations (pedagogic, psychology, medicine, biology). A knowledge of the fundamental principles of the subject area is necessary – mush can be simply picked up.

Certainly, in ESP there are positional dangers, such as:

~ lack of both personal and professional contact with subject teachers;

~ isolation from other ESP teachers ;

~ lack of respect from students.

ESP components and competencies of school-leavers level:

~ ability to transform info from one signal system to another;

~ ability to work with texts of different functional styles, scanning and skimming of articles;

~ ability to participate in international ‘Olympiads’;

~ career orientation;

~interdisciplinary PW;

~ compensatory competencies, such as use of type (bold, italics), comments, references.

+ several specific communication spheres, such as ‘Scientific and technological progress’, ‘Nature and Ecology’.

References:

1. Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). English for Specific Purposes: A learning-centered approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2. Johns, A., & Dudley-Evans, T. (1991). English for Specific Purposes: International in scope, specific in purpose. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 297-314.

3. Johnson, R. (Ed.). (1989). The second language curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4. Jones, G. (1990). ESP textbooks: Do they really exist? English for Specific Purposes, 9, 89-93.

5. Lomperis, A. (1998). Best practices in EOP/EPP: Steps in providing a program. http://my.voyager.net/azure/programI.html

6. Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1023