Engineering ESP Instruction for
Lower-level Japanese Students
Jerold A. DeHart
Center for Language Research
The University of Aizu
Tsuruga Ikkimachi, Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima
Japan
Abstract: Language education is big business for tertiary education. Second language
student whose English fluency is high enough to be accepted into an engineering program
at a foreign university are afforded excellent educational opportunities in many
disciplines. But many EFL students do not reach that level and remain behind in domestic
EFL/ESP programs. These programs may be influenced by many factors that may
redirect some ESP instructional designers away from meeting student learning needs to
focus on more advanced goals. This paper raises awareness of the need for curriculum
designers to reflect on undergraduate ESP and makes recommendation to creative
supportive learning environments for lower level language learners.
Key Words: ESP/EFL engineering education, adult learning, facilitation
1. Introduction
English for Specific Purpose is a newer focus
in language teaching and is influencing
international engineering curriculums by
focusing on vocational discourse content as
the basis for English instruction. ESP
illustrates how pedagogies are reflecting and
accommodating to social changes occurring
as a result changes in business and industry
sectors, and in larger global systems, both
enhanced
through
computer
related
technologies. To extract the thinking behind
the ESP, one could say that instructional
design of the ESP classroom is influenced to
a large extent by the utility of language in a
certain work arena; they equip people with
the second language skills primarily used in
the workplace, such international students
who need English for medical research,
aerospace and telecommunication systems to
offer a few examples. Most ESP programs
coincide with professional programs in
university, while other ESP corporate
language programs provide language
assistance on the job for adult learners
who have a vested interest for
improving their workplace English.
Some non-degree ESP programs exist,
such as government programs, to assist
internationals living and working
abroad, and provide language assistance
for employability.
ESP undergraduate programs, the focus
in this paper, are rare and these students
are considered as pre-professional.
Students develop English skills as well
as becoming familiar with foundational
knowledge of their discipline. ESP
programs have dual educational goals.
One focuses on language acquisition
and the second is to assist knowledge
acquisition. Language learning is no
longer an end in itself as it once was.
Today’s instruction is on language
utilization or in other words, language
competency and communicativity.
Therefore the aim of ESP tends to be
quite narrow in scope, and assumes that
students have a basic understanding of the
grammatical structures, and functional
notions of English that allow fluency for
learning in other settings.. Mastery of English
at the undergraduate level can lead to
learning in international schools that offer
even more advanced instruction.
Many students who learn English as a second
language (ESL) use it as an access key to
higher learning, better job procurement, and
financial rewarded in the long run. The
promise of a degree from an English speaking
university holds financial promise. It is this
hope that drives many internationals to
consider studying English in college to
pursue advance degrees in foreign countries.
This group drives many governments to
consider investing in the business of
international English instruction for those
students. Language learning can be translated
into economic potential around the world,
both for the individual and for university
program. Since English has become the
default lingua franca of business and
research, competition
is strong among English speaking nations to
recruit foreign students.
The proof is the number of internationals
studying abroad worldwide. There are
approximately 3,200 accredited degree
granting institutions in the United States. In
1971, the United States State Department
issued only 65,000 student visas. By 2000, it
was issuing 315,000 such visas. As many as
one million foreign students are currently in
the U.S.American universities lead the world
in education in educating roughly one million
international students, which is about half of
the 2 million students traveling abroad to
other countries for higher education,
according to the most recent annual report,
Atlas of Student Mobility (2003) released by
the Institute of International Education.
The international English language
business is doing well elsewhere too. In
the United Kingdom, 300,000 overseas
students every year contribute an
estimated £3 billion a year to the British
economy. In 2003, New Zealand’s
international
educational
market
brought in $1,800,000,000 servicing
80,000 students and was New Zealand’s
fourth largest source of revenue
( Exporting Education Industry, 2004).
Across the water, Australia is similarly
experiencing an annual 15-20%
increase in international students on
their campuses, especially since 2000
when Australia set up its IDP program
aimed to compete with the US, Britain
and New Zealand. Students from a
global network of 35 countries
participate in their systems. The trend
can be seen in Canada, India, Singapore
and elsewhere. This is all fine and good
for students who have attained an
advanced level of academic English to
manage study in college engineering,
medical and business programs.
2. Three EFL problems for
students
Students who are fortunate to study
aboard have reached a level of language
proficiency to score at least 600 on the
TOEFL test can meet college entrance
requirements. These students may still
struggle reading technical articles, and
engineering texts written for native
English speakers. They have personal
goals, direction and resources to help
them write reports as they work up the
educational ladder.
Many graduate
schools and doctoral programs expect
these students to have English skills
adequate for dissertation writing,
research, conference
journal publications.
presentations
and
International professional schools recruit
Master and Doctoral level students who are
older and psychologically invested in their
academic and professional career paths.
While many international students may wish
to attend these schools, lower level language
EFL (3LEFL) students are constrained by
their poorer language command.
ESP as an instructional approach for
engineering students (or any other discipline)
is appropriately designed for the adult learner
and professional laborer. The use of an ESP
oriented undergraduate program is rare and
experimental. Several unresolved issues are
being explored with this educational model.
This paper introduces three of these problems.
It may be rightly argued that ESP exposes
students to the discourse that professionals
use in the field. While that may be well and
good, the fact is that professionals in the field
also have the capacity and foundational
knowledge that enabled them to get into the
field in the first place, and undergraduate
EFL students is still developing the
foundational language skills to interact within
an
academic
program.
This
EFL
undergraduate is still pre-mature and
uncomfortable with basic functional English.
Overlooking these realities, an enthusiasm for
promoting professional standards and leads to
an educational bias or blindness I call ESP
myopia.
ESP myopia may be an escape for language
teachers who are tired of simply: teaching
language” year after year to lower level
learners and personally want more personal
satisfaction and challenge. After all, the
attrition rate of language learners is high and
language teaching is a complex and unwieldy
endeavor. College EFL teaching is hard work
with the result often not seen since
students quickly move on. Nevertheless
the need of all EFL programs is to
provide the fundamental foundational
language skills that would allow
mobility into any discipline, scientific or
otherwise.
Teaching
specialized
language and genre of a certain
occupation to lower level undergraduate
may be appealing, impressive and even
justifiable on theoretical grounds, since
the ESP program wants to recruit the top
students, and give him a head start by
introducing the professional discourse,
but it can easily overlook the immediate
developmental stages of the 3L EFL
student.
But it should be considered that if a
student develops the foundational
English skills, and continues to develop
as an adult learner, then in time, is it not
reasonable to think that this adult
engineer will be quicker to pick up
language in the work place. So I raise
the question, why teach what other
people can and will get naturally in time
(discreet specialized language) rather
than do what other people can not do and
will not do (provide foundational
language skills).
For an undergraduate program to adopt
an ESP focus, there needs to be care not
to exclude lower level students, since
they too are paying for education like
others. Assuming that education is to
focus primarily on the meeting the
needs of the developing students,
any ESP program that holds a bias for
working with the “better student” and
prejudice against the “lower student”
should
be
questioned.
This
preoccupation
for
appealing
to
professional standards may not be
arising not from a concern for student
learning, but rather from a self-absorbing
focus to make the profession of the lowly
language
teacher
more
respectable.
Undergraduate ESP program need to recall
their primary aim is to serve the aims of the
university and not the corporation, which is
to educate the wide range of learners coming
into the undergraduate school. Undergraduate
ESP instructors can best serve engineering
students by making sure students have the
requisite skills before introducing advance
level training. Professionalism can never be
considered as a substitute for the
indispensable basics. ESP curriculum
designers should remember that students in
an undergraduate program are not ready for
professional training, and it would be more
appropriate, in this educator’s opinion to
balance the program for pre-professional
language skills acquisition to ensure that
students are well grounded in the
indispensable communicative skills of
reading, writing, listening and speaking.
The second problem for EFL curriculum
designers is the problem of balance. All
academic programs have strengths and
limitations, but when working with
undergraduate ESP programs, we are still in
the beginning stages to tell whether this
approach is effective or not. One implication
is that both English language instructors and
science and math faculty must work together
to coordinate a realistic program that
enhances language facility and at the same
time discipline competencies. The standards
of engineering and language must remain
rigid and rigorous and non-negotiable. The
same attitude should be there for university
level language programs but filtered through
an understanding that language acquisition is
a developmental, process for students, and as
such should be considered as complex as
teaching programming skills or brain surgery.
It is not just about vocabulary and
memorizing rules. But it has not been
established that ESP programs are more
effective
in
building
language
proficiency than regular
EFL/ESL
programs
The second problem is the challenge
that ESP instructional designers face in
balancing instructional goals with
developmental needs. The table below
(adapted from Bennet and Bennet,
1995).
High Challenge Content
Learner
Leaves
High
Challenge
Process
Learner
Develops
Learner
Acquires
Knowledge
Low
Challenge
Process
Learner
Rests
Low Challenge Content
Figure 1: The Balancing Challenge
Students need to become familiar with
the knowledge of their discipline and
English and transform this knowledge
into useable. Balancing the content with
the learning processes and instructional
activities means taking an honest look
at the system, environment and time
frame to come up with a realistic and
effective program. Hansen (1991)has
pointed out that besides age and attitude,
the level of language proficiency is the
key factor in determining how fast and
how much of a language will be attrited.
whether or not a L2 learner will lose his
language. If students develop higher
proficiency levels, they will be less likely to
succumb to natural language attrition.
Getting that proficiency up is a matter of
striking an pedagogical balance. If the
academic and language content is too
challenging, the lower level learner (LLL)
leaves. When the content is too easy the
learner becomes bored or rest. The educator’s
work lies in the other two quadrants.
Knowing what content to present and how to
scaffold information will help the 3L EFL
student develop the skills and knowledge
needed to tackle more difficult goals like
studying overseas.
The native textbook problem
The third problem that should be duely noted
is the selection of native level textbook for
3L EFL students. Again, the mature adult
student will exhibit the discipline as an adult
learner who has broken a dependency on
teacher and/or external requirements and will
be proactive and pursuing learning
independently. The maturer learner will work
through the text, but less mature EFL
students will remain dependant on teachers or
retreat in self-defeat because of the sheer
amount of work involved in reading a textbook written for native English speakers.
While the advanced learner may make gains
in knowledge and language, the 3L EFL
student sees this as a sink-or-swim situation
and has one choice.
Often textbook selections are justified by the
argument that internationals in an American
university are using the text.
One example will suffice. Weisberg and
Buker’s (1990) book, Writing Up Research:
Experimental Research Report Writing for
Students of English was a well recommended
book for international students learning how
to write up experimental research. It is a good
book for advanced English students who are
ready for experimental research, but again 3L
EFL students were not inclined to read the
text, and instead relied on class lectures,
friends or instructor for explanation and
direction in writing their reports; others
did not even buy the book.
Textbooks written for internationals
who have gained access to the
university classroom have already
established their language ability to
manage academic work. The standard
college entrance requirement is a
minimal 600 score on the TOEFL.
Students whose language score falls
between 400 to 500 would not be
capable of reading, let along
comprehending a regular college
engineering textbook. Instructors would
do well to ask the functional question
an engineer might ask in problemsolving: Would this text work for the
3L EFL student?
It is one thing to read a technical
textbook for content; it is entirely
another endeavor to read a technical
textbook for learning specialized
language. This author believes it is
possible to do both as long as both
teacher and student make adjustments
in their instructional objectives and
adequate time is given to develop
knowledge and skills.
While we understand that college
students should be committed and
responsible to work hard, I suggest that
this type of situation may cap the 3L
EFL learner and initiate the onset of
language attrition. Coping strategies
vary with individuals, but avoidance
and withdrawal are logical choices
when these students are left to
themselves.
Considerations
These three problems of ESP
professional myopia, an unbalanced
program, and mismatched textbooks should
not be addressed by engineers in one corner
of the curriculum and language teachers in
the other corner. For undergraduate ESP
programs in non-English dominant situations,
(they are relatively few), it is worthwhile to
recall Hutchinson and Water’s advice to
consider the whole before deciding the
particulars. This consideration should be
done with representatives from many
departments and effort should be made to
balance process and content through an
integrated curriculum that develops fluency
and competency through a concerted effort to
identify and use the same language across the
curriculum so students have the fundamentals
on which to build their particular studies..
To answer the three questions of how to
meet the 3EFL students needs while pursuing
ESP goals, how educators can balance
process and content and how to adapt college
textbooks written for native speakers to
realistic reading levels of the lower student,
there are no clear answers, but I borrow from
Schank and Neaman’s (2001) and offer
these suggestions.
First, the EFL/ESP/discipline educational
designer must not look exclusively to experts
outside their educational systems, but rather
see themselves as the ones most qualified to
make the decisive judgments. This means
realizing that we all are learning as well.
Since our learning is realistic, relevant and
required work, we can likewise extend to our
students work that is likewise meaningful and
not just episodic activity that is irrelevant,
incongruent and quickly forgotten Language
courses need rigorous standards, realistic
expectations and have assessments that
measure
development
and
progress
holistically rather than fragmented bits. ESP
teachers would benefit from working closely
with their counterparts, setting in their classes,
and reading recommended journal articles.
Likewise discipline teachers could benefit
from working with language colleagues,
teaching lineage elements in their
courses, and reading recommend
articles on language learning.
Shank and Neaman (2001) recommend
that students should not be thrown into
situations that are sink-and-swim.
Rather, a balanced process is one that
provides varied support, through elearning and self-directed learning using
the internet. Doctors, pilots, and
engineers are not thrown into real
situations without adequate preparation,
yet 3L EFL students are being evaluated
on projects that they do not have the
skills to do. Shank and Neaman (2001)
also advise the use of simulations and
real experience to meaningfully engage
students on mistakes they make in order
to anchor and accelerate the learning
process.
By keeping a holistic systems thinking
perspective, a development model of
language learning, balancing content
and processes, adapting textbooks and
working collaborative, the lower level
undergraduate language learner may
reach the professional level whether he
goes overseas or studies in his home
country.
References
Borias, G. 2002. “Rethinking Foreign
Students: A question of the national
interest - 9-11-01 terrorist attacks point
to the need for a reevaluation of the
foreign
student
visa
program.”
National Review, June 17, 2002.
Davis, T. (2003). Atlas of Student
Mobility. New York: The Institute of
International Education.
Hansen, L. (1999). Second language attrition
in Japanese contexts. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Knowles, M. S. (1970). The modern practice
of adult education. New York: Association
Press.
Schank, R. and Neaman A. (2001). In Forbus
and Feltovich, (2001). Smart Machines in
Education, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press p.
37-39.
Hindrawan,
J
International
Student
Recruitment Since 9/11, retrieved from
http://www/wes.org/wenr/03March
Features.htm on October 15, 2004.
Undergraduate Study in the US. Retrieved
from
http://usembassyaustralia.state.gov/education/afc0630.htm.
accessed October 15, 2004).
Young and Young
2003. The Export
Education Industry: Challenges for New
Zealand. Asia 2000 Foundation.
Retrieved
from
www.asia2000.org.nz/about/programmes/rese
arch/export_education