abstract this presentation will provide an overview of state-of-the-art esp theory and practice. how...
TRANSCRIPT
Recent Developments in English for Specific Purposes Diane BelcherGeorgia State UniversityAtlanta, GA, USA
AbstractThis presentation will provide an overview of state-of-the-art ESP theory and practice. How genre theory, corpus linguistics, and other recent developments are helping meet the challenges of developing needs-informed, needs-responsive, and needs-knowledgeable ELT pedagogy and educators will be discussed.
Three readings: Which would you use?
What I won’t discuss today: Language for General Purposes (all-purpose or no-purpose language instruction)
•General (language for no purpose) courses at any proficiency level•almost always teach too much•and too little
“Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, it is more defensible to view every course as involving specific purposes.…” (Long, 2005, p. 19)
English (language) for specific purposes: Dynamic, diverse, and global
•Definition: ESP—a language teaching approach that assumes•Learning needs are unique to specific learners in specific contexts •Instruction should meet those specific needs
•but should be critically pragmatic as well
•Whose needs? Whose rights?
•New York: An English as a Second Language textbook focuses predominantly on food-preparation vocabulary, night-school student Eduardo Reyes reported Monday. “I must admit, I would like to learn to say more than: ‘I have diced the onions,’ and ‘Did he want scrambled or over-easy?’ said a disconsolate Reyes, speaking through a translator, following his first lesson. “I had hoped to learn words for the different parts of the body so I can pursue my dream of becoming a doctor. I have instead learned much about the grilling of chickens.” (Siegal, 2002, p. 206, cited in Belcher, 2004)
•ESP = Learner-centeredness
Critical pragmatism vs. cultural
accommodation•Critical pragmatism:
•“a position that … insists that while we do have to get on with our teaching, we also have to think very seriously about the broader implications of everything we do.” (Pennycook, 1997, p. 267)
•“Critical Pragmatic EAP … has two objectives: •`to help students perform well … while encouraging them to question and shape the education they are being offered' (Benesch, 2001, p. xvii).” (Harwood & Hadley, 2004)
Scope of ESP•As many different types of ESP as there are specialized language learning needs: •EAP—any educational level•EOP—e.g., EMP (medical), EBP (business), ELP (legal), EEP (engineering)•English for air traffic controllers, English for tourist guides, English for horse breeders, and English for brewers, etc.
•EAOP –e.g., EAMP, EABP, EALP, EAEP (English for academic engineering purposes)
•ESCP (sociocultural): incarcerated, coping with physical disabilities, or seeking local community membership (Belcher, 2004, 2009; Morgan & Fleming, 2009)
Essential components of ESP
1. Needs assessment
2. Needs-responsive instructional materials and methods
3. Needs-knowledgeable instructors
Basic challenges of essential ESP components
• How to obtain realistic, accurate assessment of learner needs:
• Identify present and target needs of specific learners in school, at work, in life:
• ESP professionals never assume they know what all language learners need.
• How to develop instructional materials and teaching methods to meet identified needs:
• General language teaching methods are not assumed to be effective for specific learners.
• How to develop specific expertise, specialist knowledge needed by instructors:
• Previous training is not assumed adequate for ESP.
1. Specific challenges of needs assessment: Determining target needs
What do those in the target discourse community, e.g., electrical engineers, computer scientists, do?
What do they routinely write, read, say, comprehend as listeners? I.e., what are their common literacy and oracy practices?
Determining discourse practices of discourse community members
•In the past: opportunistic data collection•ESP professionals obtained what was available, e.g., published texts
•Analysis: looking for & manually counting patterns •Usually lexicogrammatical, in sample documents, sometimes with input from specialists in field
•Thus, decontextualized bottom-up register analysis•Vocabulary and sentence-level grammar
Today: Genre theory aided by corpus linguistics (top down and bottom up discourse analysis in context)
Genre theory• Genre = socially agreed upon ways of meeting communicative goals, e.g., business letters, scientific research articles, engineering design reports (Belcher, 2004; 2006; 2009; Biber, Connor, & Upton, 2007; Hyland, 2004)
• Interested in macro and micro levels of genres:
• macro-structure, rhetorical organization, or discourse “moves” (Swales, 1990)
• micro-level features: lexical and syntactic levels (Flowerdew, 2005).
Macro: Moves analysis– Research article introductions
Micro analysis: Corpus linguistics—computer-assisted collection & analysis of massive amounts of authentic language data•Huge Corpora of everyday English
•British National Corpus, UK– 100 million words
•Bank of English / Wordbanks Online, UK & US, >500 million words
•Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), US, >400 million words (continuously updated)
•Genres covered: spoken and written, popular magazines, newspapers, fiction, academic (COCA only)
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/compare-boe.asp
Specialized corpora for specific genres:• MICASE: http://micase.elicorpora.info/ spoken academic English
•MICUSP: http://micusp.elicorpora.info/ written academic English
•ELFA: http://www.helsinki.fi/englanti/elfa/elfacorpus.html spoken and written academic English as a lingua franca
For more resources, see Nesi (2013)
Specialized genre studies: Target needs assessment in EEPSample studies of engineering genres: (See Parkinson 2013 for discussion of many of these studies)
Research article: Anthony (1999): Software engineering RA introductionsKanoksilapatham (2015) RA variations across 3 engineering fields
Thesis: Koutsantoni (2006): Engineering thesis vs. RADesign report/presentations: Dannells (2009): Academic and workplace-oriented expectations of engineering faculty (also Marshall, 1991)
Academic engineering lecture: Olsen & Huckin (1990): Problem/solution structure common
Workplace progress report: Artemeva (1998): Different goals of N. American and Russian engineering companies: concrete solutions vs. scientific research
Many engineering research articles, theses, etc now online, hence easy to access, download, enter in DIY corpora)
Corpus-based genre research: Realistic expectations
•Rozycki & Johnson (2013): Acceptance of English as a Lingua Franca usage may be common in engineering
• Their study of “best papers” in IEEE: Noncanonical (NC) usage fairly frequent, similar to spoken ELF—e.g., definite/indefinite article omission, subject/verb discord
• Most IEEE reviewers and editors are ELF speakers, exhibit “who am I to judge?” sentiment: “I cannot [will not] judge if the language is good.”
• “…NNSEs in the field of engineering have organically grown a language that allows all language speakers to communicate with success.”
•
Determining present needs What are most immediate needs? How far are current abilities from needed abilities?
Focus on learners themselves: as individuals at certain proficiency
levels, with specific backgrounds, with specific lacks and wants
(objective and subjective)
Learner-data collection tools
•standardized tests and specialized performance tests
•surveys and interviews of learners, teachers, supervisors, professionals who interact with learners
•ethnographic participant/observation•learner corpora
Language testing: Standardized tests vs. ESP assessment
•TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, etc.: Only general language proficiency information•See Douglas (2000) for language testing for specific purposes guidelines
•Artemeva & Fox (2010): Engineering genre competence assessment:•Ability to identify textual features necessary but not sufficient for writing engineering genres (Parkinson, 2013, p. 162)
Questionnaires
Survey of workplace communication genres:
Kassim & Ali (2010): Surveyed Malaysian engineers
Concluded: More attention needed for engineering workplace oral
communication, e.g., teleconferencing
Interviews—greater flexibility (not limited to predetermined questions)
• Kaewpet (2009)• 25 stakeholders interviewed: employers, civil engineers, civil engineering lecturers, ex-civil engineering students of the technical English course, and ESP teachers.
• Found 4 key communicative events to include in ESP course
Surveys + interviews + observations = triangulation
Fig. 1 Triangulation of engineers’ survey questionnaires, interviews, onsite observations, and customer interview.
Spence & Liu
Engineering English and the high-tech industry: A case study of an English needs analysis of process integration engineers at a semiconductor manufacturing company in Taiwan
English for Specific Purposes, Volume 32, Issue 2, 2013, 97 - 109http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2012.11.003
(Critical) Ethnographic participant/observation Observing in real settings
Jasso-Aguilar (2005): worked with hotel housekeeping staff in Hawaii, observed
1. real demands of hotel interactions 2. difficulty meeting the demands 3. felt needs for more than “Aloha
welcome” language 4. differences between staff wants,
short and long-term, and hotel management goals (power differential)
Needs assessment: Now seen as necessarily ongoing
Archer (2008): Give students ongoing opportunity to reflect on own needs (wants, lacks, personal goals) vis-à-vis target needs in discipline“A [transformative] curriculum which draws on students’ experiences and discourses … provides an opportunity for students to begin to interrogate their past situations as well as their aspirations. They also start to think critically of engineering as a profession within [their own local context].” (p. 264)
2. Needs-responsive instructional materials and methods
ESP: Materials-driven approachAuthentic materials come first
Methods followAlmost always content-
based
Materials: Defining and achieving authenticity
•Authentic materials taken out of context and into the classroom no longer authentic? (Widdowson, 1979).
• But tasks derived from needs assessment help simulate target situations
Cline of authenticity
•Most: materials directly from target situation
• Mid-range: materials adapted/developed from target situation
• Least: commercially produced textbooks
Commercial textbooks: More or less authentic?
•Some designed by ESP professionals: empirical data, genre analysis, authentic documents, tasks
• EAP: Swales and Feak (2000, 2004) encourage learners to be discourse ethnographers: gathering genre examples from own fields
• ESP for specific fields: Glendinning & Glendinning (1995) Oxford English for Electrical & Mechanical Engineering (see also Ibbotson, 2008, Cambridge English for Engineering):
• Authentic reading and listening passages covering a wide range of topics, e.g. materials, mechanisms, forces, safety at work, engineering design, automated systems, robotics, hydraulics, process control, and CAD.
Adapted and developed materials
•T. Johns’ (1994; with King, 1991) data driven materials, based on learner corpora
Content-based methods (enabled by authentic materials)
Definition: Language pedagogy: focus on meaning, not abstract language systems
Content: carrier of language instruction Language: taught as means of learning content and doing something with language
Latest version: CLIL (content and language-integrated learning): Wolff (2009)
Two major content-based approaches: broad and narrow
Broad gauged approach: often found in EAP, often for first-year undergraduates
Corpus linguistics EAP research (Coxhead, 2013), Coxhead & Nation’s (2001) core academic vocabulary, supports broad approach:
2,000 basic high frequency words plus the 570 reasonably frequent word families of Coxhead’s Academic Word List provide 90% coverage of most subject areas
Ward (2009) found 299 word types from General Service list (2000 most frequent English words) plus Academic Word List gave good coverage for 5 engineering areas, words such as system, equation, flow (see Parkinson, 2013)
Sample Broad-gauged Method
•Use of literary texts popular in EAP Hirvela (1990) used science fiction
with science majors at (see also Diaz-Santos, 2000)
Learners read texts about science,
not scientific textsAdvantages of this approach?
Narrow-gauged approach
•More often found in EOP•Technical vocabulary crucial to fluently reading and comprehending disciplinary texts (Hyland & Tse, 2007)
Popular narrow-gauged teaching strategies: Simulation & consciousness-raisingSimulation: • PBL very common in engineering: “PBL enculturates students into the activities of engineering by using group work, as practicing engineers do, to solve design problems” (Parkinson, 2013, p. 163)
• Neville & Britt (2007): PBL in LSP (German as FL) for biological engineering
• “In addition to organizing the team that will research the feasibility of
• new dialysis membranes, your other short-term goals will be to put this• research into a historical and physiological framework, evaluate• potential resources in the development of these membranes, and report• on experiment results. Your first design brief is expected in Bad• Homburg in three weeks. In addition, you will be competing with other• design teams for approval of limited company research and development• resources.”
Consciousness-raising: Metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness Portfolio approach: for reading/writing, or listening/speaking (see A. Johns, 1997)
• Disciplinary portfolios: Hirvela (1997): students collect authentic examples of genres; produce own texts; analyze expert and own texts; reflect on portfolio contents: identify standard practices, evaluate own efforts
• E-disciplinary portfolios/DIY corpora: Lee & Swales (2006): students build expert corpus of downloaded articles in own discipline; use software to analyze and compare the 2 corpora (see also Charles 2012, 2013, on DIY corpora)
3. Content-area knowledgeable instructors
How to build teacher knowledge needed for ESP: New subject matter for language instructors: May threaten sense of expertise
Students may know much more about subject matter
How much needs to be learned about specialist area?
•Ferguson (1997): may be enough to know about an area, rather than knowing the area itself: learning its values, epistemological bases, preferred genres
•Dudley-Evans (1997): ESP teachers must learn how to learn from and with students
•Robinson (1991): intellectual curiosity and respect for learner knowledge most important
Coping with specialist knowledge challenge• Dual professionalism: degrees in 2 areas: specialist area and language education, e.g., Natalia Artemeva; few people willing to commit to dual expertise
• Team teaching: language expert and subject specialist teach together (Dudley-Evans, 1995)
• Linked classes: language class students all take one subject area course together; that subject matter becomes the content of the language class (Johns, 1997)
• Specialist informants: ESP instructors consult with subject specialists while developing materials and curriculum for advice on genres, sample texts, common tasks (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998)
• Specialist mentors: Subject specialists provide feedback on ESP (EAP) student work to complement ESL instructor feedback (Cavusgil, 2007)
Specialist knowledge challenge cont’d
•Promoting learner autonomy
•DIY corpora (Lee & Swales, 2006; Charles 2012, 2013)
•Computer tutorials (Lo, Liu, & Wang, 2014)
•Collaborative digital projects (Hafner, 2014 Hafner & Miller, 2011;)
Computer-based tutorials build genre knowledge, lexicogrammatical repertoires, source documentation abilities—Lo, Liu, & Wang (2014)—“a self-directed system for journal writing” Architecture of EJP-Write user–system for journal paper writing with three modules (orange) and multiple databases (blue)
Student collaboration•Collaborative digital storytelling
• Hafner & Miller (2011; Hafner, 2014) English for science & technology
• Video science documentary course project for English-language students in Hong Kong
• In groups• Defined a research problem• Read relevant research literature • Designed & performed experiments• Re-enacted scripted versions for videos
• Posted videos on YouTube http://www1.english.cityu.edu.hk/acadlit/index.php?q=node/29
Challenges and Rewards of ESP •The ESP approach requires
•Willingness •to enter as outsider into new domains, academic and occupational—to be challenged
•to learn from and with students (Dudley-Evans, 1997)
•to prepare students for their future, not our past (Hafner, 2014)
This makes ESP demanding but also exciting and intellectually satisfying
Thanks for listening! Come visit me and my department athttps://www.facebook.com/ALESLatGSU
References• Anthony, L. (1999). Writing RA introductions in software engineering: How accurate is a
standard model? IEEE Transactions in Professional Communication, 42, 38-46. • Archer, A. (2008). ‘This place is suffering’: Enabling dialogue between students’ discourse
and academic literacy academic conventions in engineering. English for Specific Purposes, 27, 255-277.
• Artemeva, N. (1998). The writing consultant as cultural interpreter: Bridging cultural perspectives on the genre of the periodic engineering report. Technical Communication Quarterly, 3, 285-299.
• Artemeva, N., & Fox, J. (2010). Awareness versus production: Probing students’ antecedent genre knowledge. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 24, 476-515.
• Belcher, D. (2004). Trends in teaching English for specific purposes. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 165-186.
• Belcher, D. (2006). English for specific purposes: Teaching to perceived needs and imagined futures in worlds of work, study, and everyday life. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 133-156.
• Belcher, D. (2009). What ESP is and can be: An introduction. In D. Belcher (Ed.), English for specific purposes in theory and practice. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
• Benesch, Sarah. 2001. Critical English for academic purposes: Theory, politics, and practice. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Biber, D., Connor, U., & Upton, T. (2007). Discourse on the move: Using corpus analysis to describe discourse structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Cavusgil, S. (2007). Establishing effective graduate student writer/mentor relationships. HEIS [TESOL Higher Education Interest Section] News, 26.2 <http://www.tesol.org//s_tesol/sec_issue.asp?nid=2746&iid=9183&sid=1#382>.
• Coxhead, A. (2013). Vocabulary and ESP. In B. Paltridge & S. Starfield (Eds.), The handbook of English for specific purposes (pp. 115-132). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Coxhead, A., & Nation, P. (2001). The specialised vocabulary of English for academic purposes. In Flowerdew & M. Peacock (Eds.), Research perspectives on English for academic purposes. (pp. 252-267). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Dannels, D. P. (2009). Features of success in engineering design presentations: A call for relational genre knowledge. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 23, 399-427.
• Diaz-Santos, G. (2000). Technothrillers and English for science and technology. English for Specific Purposes, 19, 221-236.
• Douglas, D. (2000). Assessing language for specific purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Dudley-Evans, T. (1995). Common-core and specific approaches to the the teaching of academic writing. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second language (pp. 293-312). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
• Dudley-Evans, T. (1997). Five questions for LSP teacher training. In R. Howard & J. Brown (Eds.), Teacher education for LSP. (pp. 58-67). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Dudley-Evans, T., & St John, M. J. (1998). Developments in ESP: A multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Ferguson, G. (1997). Teacher education and LSP: The role of specialised knowledge. In R. Howard & J. Brown (Eds.), Teacher education for LSP. (pp. 80-89). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Flowerdew, L. (2005). An integration of corpus-based and genre-based approaches to text analysis in EAP/ESP: Countering criticisms against corpus-based methodologies. English for Specific Purposes, 24, 321-332.
• Harwood, Nigel, & Hadley, Gregory. 2004. Demystifying institutional practices: critical pragmatism and the teaching of academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 23, 4 355-377.
• Hirvela, A. (1990). ESP and literature: A reassessment. English for Specific Purposes., 9(3), 237-252.
• Hirvela, A. (1997). "Disciplinary portfolios" and EAP writing instruction. English for Specific Purposes., 16(2), 83-100.
• Hyland, K. (2004). Genre and second language writing. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
• Jasso-Aguilar, R. (2005). Sources, methods and triangulation in needs analysis: A critical perspective in a case study of Waikiki hotel maids. In M. Long (Ed.), .), Second language needs analysis (127-158). New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Johns, A. (1997). Text, role, and context: Developing academic literacies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Johns, T. (1994). From printout to handout: Grammar and vocabulary teaching in the context of data-driven learning. In T. Odlin (Ed.), Perspectives on pedagogical grammar (pp.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Johns, T., & King, P. (Eds.). (1991). Classroom concordancing. Birmingham: Birmingham University.
• Kanoksilapatham , B. (2015). Distinguishing textual features characterizing structural variation in research articles across three engineering sub-discipline corpora. English for Specific Purposes, 37, 74-86.
• Kassim, H., & Ali, F. (2010). English communicative events and skills needed at the workplace: Feedback from the industry. English for Specific Purposes, 29, 168-182.
• Koutsantoni, D. (2006). Rhetorical strategies in engineering RAs and research theses: Advanced academic literacy and relations of power. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 19-36.
• Lee, D., & Swales, J. (forthcoming). A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctor students: Moving from available specialized corpora to self-compiled corpora. English for Specific Purposes.
• Long, M. (2005). Methodological issues in learner needs analysis. In M. Long (Ed.), Second language needs analysis (19-76). New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Marshall, S. (1991). A genre-based approach to teaching report-writing. English for Specific Purposes, 10, 3-13.
• Morgan, B., & Fleming,D. (2009). Critical citizenship in ESP and ESL programs. In D. Belcher (Ed.)., English for specific purposes in theory and practice (pp. 264-288). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
• Nesi, Hilary, & Sheena Gardner. 2012. Genres across disciplines: Student writing in higher education. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Neville, D., & Britt, D. (2007). A problem-based approach to integrating foreign language into engineering. Foreign Language Annals, 40, 226-246.
• Olsen, L., & Huckin, T. (1990). Point driven understanding in engineering lecture comprehension. English for Specific Purposes, 9, 33-47.
• Parkinson, J. (2013). English for science and technology. In B. Paltridge & S. Starfield (Eds.), The handbook of English for specific purposes (pp. 155-173). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Pennycook, A. 1997. Vulgar pragmatism, critical pragmatism, and EAP. English for Specific Purposes, 16, 253-269.
• Robinson, P. (1991). ESP today: A practitioner's guide. New York: Prentice Hall.
• Rozycki, W., & ,Johnson, N. (2013). Non-canonical grammar in Best Paper award winners in engineering. English for Specific Purposes, 32, 157–169.
• Spence, P., & Liu, G.-Z. (2013). English engineering and the high tech industry: A case study of an English needs analysis of process integration engineers at a semiconductor manufacturing company in Taiwan. English for Specific Purposes, 32, 97-109.
• Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Swales, J., & Feak, C. (2000). English in today's research world: A writing guide. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Swales, J., & Feak, C. (2004). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. (2nd. ed.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Ward, J. (2009). A basic engineering word list for less proficient foundation engineering undergraduates. English for Specific Purposes, 28, 170-182.
• Widdowson, H. (1979). Explorations in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Wolff, D. (2009): Content and Language Integrated Learning. In K-F. Knapp & B.Seidelhofer, in cooperation with H. Widdowson (Eds.): Handbook of Foreign Language Communication and Learning 5 (21), 545-572. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.