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38: SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGICAL ENGLISH. COMMERCIAL &…

- - - - Historical factors coinciding with rapid globalisation
        
        By mid 19C Britain = world’s 1st industrial nation. Result = v rich & powerful
        
        As British influence ↓ in 20C US influence ↑
        
        US & Eng victors of WWs- cemented the global dominance of English. Became lang of international communication
        
        Coincided with rapid globalisation & dev. of comm. technology eg rise of computer ownership & mobile phones, growth of Internet, growth of insourcing, outsourcing & offshoring AND : huge rise in cheap international travel.
        
        Globalisation - big impact too on academia (Erasmus, attracting overseas students): led to ↑ in provision of language instruction eg pre-sessional courses, academic writing, etc
        
        Result
        
        English is the lingua franca
        
        Most scientific & technologic papers are written in English.
        
        Most global tourism in Eng
        
        Most likely to be the lang used by 2 ppl who don’t speak each others’ langs
        
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    - - 1) Define the term ESP
        
        2) English for business & administration
        
        3) English for scientific texts
        
        4) Consider linguistic skills needed by students & considerations teachers need
- - - - ESP is about offering language support so that people can successfully accomplish current & future tasks in their studies or work that have a language component. By its nature, learners are ∴ mainly adults.
        
        Mackay & Mountford (1978) ESP is generally used to refer to the teaching of English for a clearly utilitarian purpose
        
        Basturkmen (2006) a language that is learnt not for its own sake or for the sake of gaining a general education, but to smooth the path to entry or greater linguistic efficiency in academic, professional or workplace environments
        
        ∴ESP is applied to situations where students have some specific reason (related to profession/academic studies) for wanting to learn the language.
    - - 1) EOP (English for Occupational Purposes)
        
        Eg: Air traffic controllers & pilots, waiters/hotel staff, Business executives
      - 2) EAP (English for Academic Purposes)
        
        Students going to study at a uni in Eng speaking country
- - - - 2 different groups of students exist - present & future employees.
        
        Present employees of international companies
        
        Expert in field! & manage perfectly well in mother tongue, so aim is to give skills to do this in English.
        
        What to teach?
        Role dependent, but:
        
        Business person: charts, diagrams, sales figures etc = for practising giving presentations
        
        Secretary: examine & answer emails, note taking of phone convos & letter writing - need to be familiar with style differences between different countries & formal letters for different purposes. enquiry, application, apology, etc as well as written conventions in terms of punctuation, abbreviations, parts of a letter, etc.
        
        Teaching of set expressions to use is v useful, can be practised through role play: I’m afraid I can’t accept your point of view; I wonder if I could…
        
        Future employees of such business (eg students)
        
        Course based on prediction of possible needs. More balanced & general as 1) unclear exactly what they’ll need & 2) not yet experts, ∴ role play / simulation of meetings may not work as well.
        
        What to teach?
        
        Listening to lectures, meetings & phone calls - understanding intonation & coping when background noise/fast speech, taking notes, expressing opinions, disagreeing
        
        Non-linguistic: using files, manuals, & books (can be more tricky in a different lang)
      - There is a specialised vocabulary for commerce (eg shares, profit margin, assets etc, and common abbreviations: IPO, APR etc but not usually a problem as picked up early on in the job + easy to practise.
        However, may need to teach industry specific jargon: ‘scale up’ & ‘synergy’ & ‘circle back’
        
        Grammar differences too eg “who” vs “whom” & generally an impersonal style, with ↑ use of passive eg “Your order has been misplaced” instead of “ We have misplaced your order”.
        
        Style - usually formal. Students should be aware of differences in vocab between formal English (French/Latin origin) & informal. Also need to determine register. important they know the right one, eg closed for air travel etc. There’ll also likely be an in-house (company) style
        
        British vs American English (e.g. expressing the date 9/11 vs 11/9) maybe relevant eg if company has offices located in both
        
        Different expectations/etiquette: - Ams/Spanish more direct, to the point (eg meetings often shorter) whereas Brits favour small talk & indirect statements & questions. Also Brits are more likely to understate things & be overly polite.
        
        Eg - it’s quite good; I was just wondering if you’d seen my email?; Would you be able to finish that report by Friday?; I’ll bear that in mind
        UK - what is said is not always what is meant. In some cultures this may be seen as deceptive; in the UK it is a way of being polite.
- - - - Vocabulary varies between sciences (eg medicine vs biology/chemistry) but there are some common characteristics:
        
        Often students know specialist terms but cannot understand / formulate statements in which those terms occur
        
        Scientific text prefers precision & brevity. No waffling / room for ambiguity.
        
        Style is usually formal & impersonal (lots of passive) & objective statements - reflects methodology of science which demands objectivity, systematic investigation & exact measurement. Lots of nouns instead of verbs (more impersonal) eg On completing the experiment... instead of after we finished completing the experiment…
        
        However - overuse of complex passive sentences has attracted considerable criticism recently - now a marked tendency to avoid them.
        
        Also depends on the medium: eg student textbooks active constructions preferred whilst passive used in more complex scientific writing.
      - Structure & features
        
        Carefully structured to ensure effective communication
        
        Title (aim & intentions) abstract (brief summary), intro, materials & methods, results, discussion, summary & reference
        
        Can have non-verbal items (graphs, tables, diagrams etc) to communicate info, so teacher needs to explain function of symbols
      - Lexical features
        
        Includes obscure words never used outside the subject/field. New terms always being invented to define new phenomena/explain new processes. Eg: (field of biology): phylum, chlorophyta, etc.
        
        Sub-Technical vocabulary: not specific but which occur regularly in scientific and technical texts, eg reflection, tendency & density
        
        Compound nouns also common - way of expressing ideas accurately & in a brief condensed way. Instead of: transmission of virus by seed; better virus seed transmission.
        
        Adjectives used to describe things - indicate shapes, measurements, properties, qualities or conditions, e.g., abrasive, oxidised, porous, organic, parasitic etc.
        
        Past participle- as adj to qualify a noun & add more info eg mottled seeds, inflected plants.
        
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        Verbs usually in present tense (universal statements, true at all times) eg Root hairs absorb water and minerals from the soil. Lots of affirmative sentences to declare truth of statements. However, sometimes negation needed as well as imperatives for (eg) instructions
        
        Present form of verb to be - in sentences that state laws of science, eg stress is proportional to strain
        
        Past tense - to review previous works / reports events & processes
        
        Present continuous (less common) emphasises activity in progress.
        
        Word formation - suffixes more frequent than prefixes, though some terms formed by adding a prefix to a stem/root, eg deform from form, inorganic, thermoplastic. Mostly added to Greek/Latin words.
        
        Useful ∴ for students to guess meaning of a word based on affix (though could have the tendency to overgeneralise)
        
        Syntax: a sentence could be performing an act of definition, classification, generalisation, drawing results, conclusion & hypothesis. Students ∴, need to know how different functions are linked together
  - - - Often everyday texts eg instruction manuals of machines eg a TV/dishwasher.
        
        Do have specific language but normally adapted so understood by general public & helped by visual aids, esp diagrams.
        
        Structure: generally 1) title (name & brand), 2) text page (summarises info & gives references to pages where each element is located, normally with diagram stating the name of all elements) 3) body - step by step instructions (using imperative)
- - - - 4 skills not stressed equally - needs analysis. 4 pillars. Syllabus design ∴ very imp.
        
        Can be highly motivating as students able to apply what they learn. So shouldn't be presented overly theoretical way, rather in authentic contexts
- - - - a) Needs analysis
        
        Needs at various levels - can be learner-based, instructor-based or administration & stakeholder-based.
        
        Determine what functions students will eventually need to master - what should they be able to do at the end of the course that they can’t do at the start?
        
        How to assess needs? Carrying out a literature review, reviewing existing textbooks, using questionnaires, interviews, observations (often better than learner surveys due to impartial outsider) & learner testing.
        
        Determine entry level (formally, with entry test or informally, with chat)
      - b) Learning objectives
        
        After needs analysis, set objectives. (express needs in linguistic & pedagogic terms & take into account initial level, time & materials available etc.)
        
        Different to common objs in Gen Eng (concerned mainly with vocab/grammar/functions) as much more specific.
        
        Stages of Attainment Scale -designed to overcome the problems of setting clear goals. A = lowest stage of attainment & H = highest stage (virtually native speaker command)
        
        Eg: company can select E as target for listening/speaking skills but B for writing
        
        Can be broken down further eg: Listening and Speaking Tasks:
        Face to face dealing with customers- E
        International meeting- D
        Use of telephone - F
        Now, the lang teacher has been given a specific target to reach.
      - c) Materials and methods
        
        Instructor to choose between adopting previously used textbook or creating new materials based on authentic language samples from the target setting (or mixture).
        
        While ESP draws on CLT, TBLT & PBL, its own particularities include:
        
        commitment to learner-centeredness
        
        a close connection with specialist subjects
        
        a focus on collaboration in both planning and teaching
        
        New technologies eg blogs, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), corpus tools etc are well suited and adaptable to ESP contexts.
      - d) Evaluation
        
        Often think of it last BUT often most imp. concern for stakeholders + learners & instructors themselves.
        
        Tests = specific purpose tests, obvs different for each sector. Often include authentic workplace content - to assess if they can now perform necessary tasks in English
        
        IELTS - best known EAP test. Big business! High stakes - eg testing scandal
        
        Must be regular 2-way assessment between student & teacher. Crucial student can make comments / suggestions, to ensure aims & methods are always in line. As the goal often = satisfactory performance in English in their work (not a certain grade in an exam), it must be the student who recognises success.