Секция 2 Лингвокультурология: ментальность и культура стран изучаемых языков.

УДК 372

Klara Kwiatkowska

M.A.,Teacher of English at Centre of Languages and Communication

Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland

Abstract: Teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) is a significant component of L2 teaching at a university level. Teaching EAP at a technical university, however, is even more demanding. It requires not only teaching academic language skills, but also placing them in the context of English for specific purposes (ESP). Aware of the challenges, we prepared a course for Computer Science graduate students (holding a BSc diploma). The goal of one-semester course in Technical and Scientific Writing is to teach students the conventions and processes involved in EAP as well as revision and evaluation strategies, within the scope of ESP teaching.

Key words: English for academic purposes, English for specific purposes, Technical and Scientific Writing, strategies of ESP teaching, writing process and text organization, Writing Academic English.

Teaching writing to technical university students

Introduction

Teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) is a significant component of L2 teaching at a university level. Teaching EAP at a technical university, however, is even more demanding. It requires not only teaching academic language skills, but also placing them in the context of English for specific purposes (ESP). Aware of the challenges, we prepared a course for Computer Science graduate students (holding a BSc diploma). The goal of one-semester course in Technical and Scientific Writing is to teach students the conventions and processes involved in EAP [3], as well as revision and evaluation strategies [2, p. iii], within the scope of ESP teaching.

The curriculum

1. Academic English in writing

The academic writing course for technical university students needs to cover a wide range of topics. The students should learn different registers present in EAP and the specifics of the writing process. The curriculum encompasses the most basic issues, as well as the most complex ones. It includes the elements a technical university student will most likely use in their academic career.

The course begins with the discussion of what is ‘academic’ writing, and then guides the students through the basic textual elements, paragraphs, with their structure and division into different types. Students learn the specifics of the writing process and text organization. At this stage we strongly emphasise paraphrasing and summarizing, the ways of quoting, and the issue of plagiarism, which may be perceived differently in different cultures. Finally, we move to more complex forms of writing. They can be selected on the basis of needs analysis or interviews with students, gauging their needs for different written forms, such as abstract or scientific report.

The programme is organised in such a way that it covers various aspects of academic writing. Its main focus is not only teaching the students formal requirements of academic writing, but also implementing them in their own writing. Therefore, we teach not only the structural elements, but also grammatical and stylistic aspect of writing.

2. The ESP component: written forms and samples

The ESP component in teaching writing heavily influences several aspects of this course. First and foremost, it influences the forms being taught. In terms of smaller segments, the students are shown the types of paragraphs they might find most useful in their academic work, such as definition of process description paragraphs. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we are not able to include forms as complex as an article. Thus, we try to focus on article abstracts, as well as scientific reports or laboratory notes. This heavy emphasis on the scientific and technical aspect of writing also affects the sample selection for teaching materials, which will be discussed in the following sections.

Sources and materials

Teachers of writing need to keep in mind that L2 writing is mostly ‘goal-oriented’ [1, p. VIII] field, with particular emphasis on performing [7, p. XV]. Fortunately, they have at their disposal a vast amount of materials pertaining to theoretical instruction and practical activities.

Every teacher may adopt a different approach to the selection of teaching materials. It is, naturally, possible to use a specific handbook, but it is also possible to apply a topic-oriented syllabus, and select the teaching materials for the topics covered during class. With that in mind, teachers can either use traditional instruction materials, online resources, or they can select appropriate materials and provide their own input.

The first group of resources constitutes academic writing handbooks. They cover a wide range of approaches and exercises. Also, depending on the profile of the book, they are either very general, or focus on specific field of academic writing, such as paragraphs. Among the multitude of handbooks one can find works such as Writing Academic English by Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue [4], covering the basics of academic writing, from the very sentence structure, to more advanced issues such as essay organisation.

The second group includes materials available online. In most cases, they are materials prepared by writing centres at universities or colleges, such as Purdue University [6] or Monash University [4]. The resources, and sometimes downloadable materials, are reliable and universal, which makes them a practical source of homework or a good source of samples for in-class work.

Finally, the third group consists of materials prepared by the teacher. The form of these materials depends solely on the instructor and the teaching methodology, and comprises both theoretical materials and in-class practice activities. Highly intelligible manner of presenting theoretical part can be a Powerpoint presentation, outlining the most important issues. Teacher can also provide handouts, summarising the main points of a discussed topic.

Practical aspects – the way of conducting class

The role of the teacher in conveying knowledge is a complex one. On the one hand, the teacher needs to ensure that the theoretical knowledge of structures and techniques do not overwhelm the students. On the other hand, the teacher needs to provide ample practice opportunities to develop the necessary skills.

As far as practical tasks for the students are concerned, they can be used as a means of gleaning theoretical knowledge from provided samples. Such exercises allow the students to train their critical skills and the ability to work with text. They teach to notice the structure of texts and to apply the theoretical principles in students’ writing. Additionally, the samples can serve as simple exercises, used to practice structural or grammatical topics. Naturally, preparation of both rests with the teacher and will most probably be adjusted to the group profile and students’ level.

Here the teachers must consider another issue, namely sample selection to illustrate the discussed topic. While copyrighted material may be difficult to acquire, texts written by other students may serve as good examples. In order to present applicable and relevant materials, the teachers turn to field-specific text. It is best that students train on texts belonging to their area of studies, as such materials yields great results, especially in more linguistically advanced groups.

Evaluation

Seeing that the main aim of the course is teaching the students practical applications of academic language principles, the teachers need to monitor their progress.

The students are evaluated on different assignments: in-class work with exercises, specific writing tasks, or tasks given to complete outside the classroom. Furthermore, instructors need to provide meaningful evaluation. They need to be consequent and make sure that the students follow clear structural and stylistic requirements of academic writing. At the same time, they must be flexible and allow the students to find their own writing style. With this aspect of evaluation, it is possible to create or adapt a mark sheet or evaluation sheet with clearly defined criteria. Following specified requirements allows the students to appraise their writing more critically and teaches them a more complex approach to the writing process.

Another method of providing feedback is conducting one-on-one meetings and discussing the progress with every student individually. While it may be time-consuming, it is more personalised and ensures constant progress monitoring.

Both evaluation approaches should be combined to provide the best results and facilitate the development of students’ academic writing style.

Summary

Teaching academic English to students is a process that needs to include all the elements of academic writing, from the most rudimentary, to the most advanced. Once the students are familiar with the specificity of academic language, they can easily acquire its structural and stylistic features.

The students rely on the teacher to provide ample instruction in formal aspects, and ensure the selection of proper teaching materials. With numerous sources for teaching aids, the teacher can select traditional or electronic resources, or can prepare materials on their own. Also, the instructor has to consider the specific environment of technical English and select materials accordingly.

However, the teacher’s role is not limited to providing teaching materials and instruction. The teacher assesses and monitors the students’ progress. Thus, the students should not only be evaluated, but also be guided through the writing process and be given suggestions for future improvement.

Bibliography

1. Cumming A. Goals for Academic Writing: ESL students and their instructors. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 2006.

2. Leki I. Academic Writing. Knoxville: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

3. Furneaux C. The Challenges of Teaching Academic Writing [pdf].

4. Retrieved from http://www.uefap.com/articles/furneaux.pdf Monash University http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing /index. xml

5. Oshima A., Hogue A. Writing Academic English. Pearson/Longman, 2005. Purdue University https://owl.english.purdue. edu/owl/section/4/

6. Silva T., Matsuda P.K. On Second Language Writing. Routledge, 2012.

УДК 372

Barbara Sawicka

M. A., Senior lecturer at Centre of Languages and Communication

Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland

Abstract: Before embarking on the task of creating the exercises to the text that we wish our students to read, we need to decide if the language of the text, especially its grammar, is manageable for our students. Ideally, students should be exposed to authentic materials but if the language is impenetrable for students to understand, the texts should be adapted for their level remaining at the same time as much real English as possible. If, on the other hand, the grammar of the text is not too complicated, we can set about creating our step by step exercises, even though the number of unfamiliar words seems to be overwhelming. The type of exercises we devise depends on the objectives we want to achieve, e.g. enhancing reading skills, teaching note taking or giving presentations. However, no matter what our objectives are, we have to start with a thorough practice of unfamiliar vocabulary.

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Key words: authentic materials, textbooks, teaching and learning process, enhancing reading skills, teaching note taking or giving presentations, ESP texts, thorough practice of unfamiliar vocabulary.

Challenges in teaching ESP to students of technical universities in Poland

Introduction

There are two fundamental sources of challenges in teaching language in a specific context at a technical university. Firstly, the choice of language textbooks is limited. Secondly, the level of a considerable number of students at technical universities in Poland is pre-intermediate or lower intermediate, which considering the nature of ESP texts and textbooks is not sufficient.

The textbooks that are available on the market are aimed at intermediate and higher level students and there is a shortage of textbooks which are designed for teaching both the language and the subject matter. In their work, ESP teachers frequently resort to authentic scientific and academic articles as well as GCSE textbooks for less proficient students which, although interesting and attractive visually, are designed for teaching the subject, not the language. There are diagrams, pictures, charts and a great deal of relevant vocational vocabulary in such resources but there are no exercises that would make the teaching and learning process successful and enjoyable for both the student and the teacher. And a successful process means here the process through which students attain the lesson’s objectives taking advantage of the material presented in the textbook in the most efficient way. Consequently, it is necessary to deal with the problem, i.e., create language tasks and use techniques which teachers are familiar with due to experience in teaching general English. How to face the challenge

First of all, before embarking on the task of creating the exercises to the text that we wish our students to read, we need to decide if the language of the text, especially its grammar, is manageable for our students. Ideally, students should be exposed to authentic materials but if the language is impenetrable for students to understand, the texts should be adapted for their level remaining at the same time as much real English as possible [4, p. 100]. If, on the other hand, the grammar of the text is not too complicated, we can set about creating our step by step exercises, even though the number of unfamiliar words seems to be overwhelming. The type of exercises we devise depends on the objectives we want to achieve, e.g. enhancing reading skills, teaching note taking or giving presentations. However, no matter what our objectives are, we have to start with a thorough practice of unfamiliar vocabulary.

Pre-reading

ESP texts cause a great difficulty to students, especially at A₂ CEFR level, mainly due to the large amount of unfamiliar vocabulary they contain. Thus, the first step in a lesson preparation is to make a list of words we predict to be unknown to our students. The list below (Fig. 1) refers to chapter 10.2 of Complete Chemistry by Rose Marie Gallager and Paul Ingram [2, p.156]. The lesson was prepared for students of Environmental Protection Technologies at the faculty of Chemical Technology at Poznan University of Technology, Poland.

a few of us	absorb	allotrope	atmosphere
bond	break down	carbon monoxide	cause
composition	consist of	continually	degree
element	equation	get dense	get spread around
graphite	height	hydrogen	ionosphere
jet	magnesium	mainly	mb (millibar)
mesosphere	molecule	nitrogen	noble gas
odd	pollutant	pressure	rapidly
remaining	result	shuttle	slightly
split	stratosphere	sulphur dioxide	surface
thin out	troposphere	temperature	uneven
uniform	vapour

Fig. 1 Vocabulary list for pre-reading exercises

Chapter 10.2 (Fig.2) describes the structure and composition of the atmosphere and explains how the ozone layer protects the Earth from UV radiation. The set of words to teach, together with the information conveyed by the text, usually suggests some types of exercises that could be developed. The following tasks were designed for this particular extract and gave successful results.

Fig. 2 Extract from chapter 10.2 of Complete Chemistry by Rose Marie Gallager and Paul Ingram, page 156.

Exercise 1. Putting words into grammatical categories:

In this exercise students analyse the words on the list and group them into the following grammatical categories:

• Verb

• Noun

• Adjective

• Adverb

This activity not only makes students think about the meaning of the words to facilitate memorising them but it may also help to develop word structure awareness as well as provide gradual introduction to grammatical metalanguage.

Exercise 2. Looking for antonyms

The meaning of the word is explained by giving the word of opposite meaning [5, p.153].

e.g. even – odd, get dense – thin out

Exercise 3. Looking for words that fulfil specific criteria

Such exercises are based on classifying the vocabulary to be learned into association groups [5, p.158]. The criteria could be given by the teacher or determined by the students themselves.

e.g. Find the names for the 4 parts of atmosphere on the vocabulary list.

Exercise 4. Word Trade

This is an enjoyable activity which can be used with any set of words. First, students decide individually which words they find interesting or important and they would like to remember. Then they choose four words from the list and write them down on slips of paper. The words should be written separately, one word on one piece of paper. Students should write the English words on one side and their mother tongue equivalents on the other side. Next, in pairs, Student A reads the words to Student B and checks if he or she remembers them. If the partner does not remember the word, Student A reads it in English and gives the slip to Student B. Then Student B repeats the activity reading the words to Student A. The winner of the game is the one who has fewer slips at the end. This activity can be repeated within groups of four students making the exercise more competitive.

Exercise 5. Venn diagrams

Venn diagrams technique is effective with content-area terms for important concepts that the teacher wants students to master [3, p.44]. The teacher first chooses overlapping concepts, such as Mathematics and Chemistry and then draws empty Venn diagrams (see Fig. 3) on the blackboard asking students to look through the set of words again to find the words that fall into these two categories. At the same time, the students should also decide which of the chosen words could be associated with both concepts. This activity makes students think about the words in a meaningful way.

Fig. 3 Venn diagrams

Exercise 6. Writing a story or a dialogue

In order to make this activity stimulating and entertaining students should forget for a moment about the topic of the particular ESP lesson. They should be encouraged to think of something nice, funny, their hobby or holidays. Then students write down a word in English which first comes to their minds. Next in groups of 3 – 4 they write a short story, a fragment of a story or a dialogue incorporating the words and two or three new ESP words from the table above.

Exercise 7. The words I like and the words I dislike

In this exercise students look through the set of words selected by the teacher to be practiced before reading and choose two or three words they like and two or three words they dislike. Then they read the words to students sitting next to them and explain their decisions.

Reading and note-taking

After we have practiced the vocabulary, we can ask students to read the text. In my experience the best way to set about this task is to divide the text, if possible, into meaningful fragments and prepare different exercises for each of them.

Exercise 1. Table filling

The first paragraph of “The atmosphere past and present” describes the structure of the atmosphere and provides a lot of factual information in the text and in the diagram to the right of the text, therefore a table filling exercise is a suitable activity here (see Fig. 4). To make the exercise communicative students should work in pairs A and in pairs B. Students A should look for information for the odd numbered lines in the table, Students B should look for information for the even numbered lines. Then after they have filled their lines they should pair off and form pairs A + B. Working with new partners, students should fill in the table with missing information by asking the following questions:

e.g. What is the height of …

What is the temperature of …

What is the pressure of …

	The parts of atmosphere are…	The height of … is from … to …	The temperature of … is …	The pressure of … is …
1A	troposphere
2B	stratosphere
3A	mesosphere
4B	ionosphere

Fig. 4 Ex.1. Table filling exercise

Exercise 2. Cloze

The second paragraph of “The atmosphere past and present” - “What’s in the air” presents information about the chemical composition of air. The exercise below is a simple cloze exercise (Fig.5). Students should first read the paragraph and then try to fill in the blank spaces not looking back at the text. Finally, they are asked to compare the original text and the completed cloze text.

Air consists of 78% of __________ , 21% of __________ and 1% of other gases like ___________ or ____________ . There are also pollutants in the air, for example ___________ . Pollutants in the air get spread around by ___________ . Wind is caused by uneven __________ of Earth’s surface.

Fig.5 Ex.2. Close exercise

This exercise differs from the original cloze procedure in which every fifth or seventh word is deleted mechanically. Here the focus is on words that are crucial to the meaning of the text [6, p. 33]. Furthermore, cloze exercises are usually employed to test rather than teach reading comprehension.

Exercise 3. Reading puzzle

The third paragraph of “The atmosphere past and present” explains how ozone layer is formed and why it protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Here, as the fragment is more complicated grammatically, I have chosen to prepare a reading puzzle (Fig. 6) in which students, having read the fragment, are supposed to analyse the chemical equation and then put the sentences in the correct order. Only then should students read the paragraph “The ozone layer” and check if their ordering was correct.

O2 2 O then 2 O2 + 2 O 2 O At the same time 2 O 2 O2 + 2 O In this way ultraviolet light is used to break bonds and does not get to the Earth. Oxygen atoms react with oxygen molecules and the result is ozone. Therefore, we are protected from UV radiation by the ozone layer. Ultraviolet light causes oxygen molecules to break into oxygen atoms. Ultraviolet light causes some ozone molecules to break into oxygen molecules and oxygen atoms again.

Fig.6 Ex.3 A reading puzzle

Exercise 4. Follow-up

The outcome of the reading puzzle exercise can be a model for a follow-up activity in which students practice reading chemical equations (Fig. 7)

Using the description in exercise 3 as an example, describe the processes. 2 H2 + O2 2 H2 O C + O2 CO2 2 Mg + O2 2 MgO

Fig. 7 Follow-up. Reading chemical equations

Conclusion

In conclusion, teaching ESP to A₂ level students at a technical university is a demanding task that requires a great deal of effort from both the teacher and the student. To make this process effective, some of the texts that are available need to be adapted to the language level of our students and to lesson objectives. Some texts or paragraphs can be used for preparing information gap communicative exercises, some other texts can be used as the basis for note taking exercises, while others can be exploited for teaching how to describe a process. Still, it must be emphasized again that whatever the objectives behind a reading exercise are, we should start our lessons with focusing on relevant vocabulary pre-teaching.