ESP: What Does the Faculty Say?
Deniz Şallı-Çopur & Hale Kızılcık
Nis, Serbia
May 22-24, 2015
• ESP courses are designed for adult learners to fulfil their
“work -or study- related needs, not personal needs or
general interests” and they “often run for a limited
period of time” (Baştürkmen 2010, p.3).
• Learners, sponsors and teachers are aware of these
language needs and that awareness shape how the
course content is designed (Hutchinson and Waters,
1987).
Context of theStudy
Middle East Technical
University
METU
School of
Foreign Languages
(SFL)
Department of
Department of
Basic English
(DBE)
Modern Languages
(MLD)
Courses
Faculty
Sector
3
Research Question
How does the faculty approach switching to an ESP
program from the currently used EAP program?
Faculty Interview: Participants
• 38 Faculty Members in 5 Faculties (33 departments)
–
–
–
–
–
Faculty of Architecture
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Natural & Social Sciences)
Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Engineering
Faculty Interview: Sampling
Data Collection
• Faculty Interviews
– Qualitative
• Paired interviewers
• No recording
• Notes sent after interview for interviewee approval
Theme: Importance of English
• Very important for
– Departmental courses
– Following literature
– Their career and professional development
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Architecture
- Positive about ESP in addition to general English and EAP
courses.
- «I would be interested in team teaching an ESP course with a
teacher from MLD»
- «ESP may be motivating and beneficial for students»
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Natural Sciences)
• Students majoring in science should read scientific texts:
«Reading literary texts would demotivate students, and
students majoring in social sciences might need to do
more intensive language work mentioning the difference
in the language of social sciences that of natural sciences.
The language of science is simple. …It is a plain language»
(BIO)
• «Reading a story by O. Henry is much more useful for students
than studying English for Chemistry in an ESP course. Students’
communication skills should go beyond chemistry books».
(CHEM)
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Natural Sciences)
• «My department cannot offer an ESP course, and reading
scientific texts will be more motivating for students, and thus
supported using texts with basic terminology in English
classes».(MATH)
• «ESP course is not meaningful. Focusing on transferable skills is
much more important (STAT).
• General English is more essential for students (PHYS1/2)
• ESP can be useful for freshman. Students master terminology
in the 3rd and 4th years anyway. (PHYS2)
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Social Sciences)
- Text selection and course methodology.
- «texts used in the introduction lessons can be used in ENG
101-102 lessons, but texts from popular psychology magazines
can be too challenging for the students in terms of language
and concepts.» (PSY)
- «ESP would be good but should be given by the department
teachers. If students learnt some basic terminology in the
advance stages in preparatory school, it would be very
helpful.» (SOC)
- «Teachers of English in SFL and faculty need to cooperate or
design ESP courses.» (PHIL)
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences
- The two professors were unsure about ESP.
- ECON2: waste of time under the present conditions. The
course s/he teaches is already like an ESP course and what
students needed is the general upgrading level of language.
- Some participants were in favour of ESP:
- IR: «social sciences departments require students to engage
in language more intensely compared to engineering
departments»
- BA: One of them also mentioned that their department
already has ESP courses, but they experience many
problems in hiring teachers to teach them as those teachers
should have some background in the field.
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Education
- «I do not believe a course only on terminology would be useful
because the topics should be contextualized and this requires
knowledge of the specific field.»
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Engineering
- No, thank you: 13
- Maybe: 3
- Yes: 1
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Engineering: No, thank you: 13
- The idea that teaching technical English is the department’s
responsibility and is already being done in the department was
a recurrent theme (n=12).
- Terminology should be taught at the departments added that
students also get bored when they have to study terminology
all the time. (n= 1)
- Students gradually learn English terminology at the
departments, and the main challenge for them is not English
terminology but Turkish terminology. (n=1)
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Engineering: No, thank you: 13
- The importance general English skills for students (n=8).
- Basic social functions such as making a phone call, renting a
flat and getting off a bus can turn out to be a major problem
once their graduates go abroad to pursue their career. Social
English is very different from technical English.
- «Engineering education should be multi-dimensional» (n=6)
- “Computer engineers work in different sectors, and they
will need to work with people in these sectors
- “Indeed, ESP can be beneficial for students’ professional
life, but if you work for 8-10 hours, you are a social
individual for the rest of the time”.
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Engineering : Maybe: 3/ Yes: 1
• ESP is not feasible since there were too many different
departments.
• English for engineers showed little variation from field to field.
– Terminology in the Environmental Engineering may be
specific, terminology used in Mechanical Engineering and
Civil Engineering may benefit all the engineering students.
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Engineering :
The participants made comments about how to improve EAP
courses:
• Teachers came up with suggestions:
– Reading lists should include more technical texts.
– Topics: Energy, alternative energy, sustainability, basic laws
of nature, interesting engineering applications, and
biographies of important scientists.
– Awareness raising topics: ethics, job security, and
conservation.
Theme: ESP
Faculty of Engineering:
• The participants made comments about how to improve EAP
courses:
– More transferable skills like how to read an article and how
to conduct an experiment can be taught.
– Students may be asked to read texts from various
disciplines (short and intense texts).
– A couple of technical writing samples can be added to the
language courses.
– Writing a report can be integrated to the already existing
course content.
Conclusion
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