Investigating the
Benefits
Derived from Discussions
on TEFL/ESP
A research
Paper
By
Ahmed Khalis Shalan
Nawroz University-Kurdistan Region-Iraq
And
Ghayda Ali Muhammed
University
of Zakho-Kurdistan Region-Iraq
Abstract
As a specialist in TEFL/ESP, the
writers of this research-paper submitted a proposal of a symposium about
TEFL/ESP titled “Teaching ESP in Iraqi-Kurdistan Region: Reality &
Prospects”, to the Deanery of the College of Languages/ Nawroz University
in collaboration with the College of Administration & Economics/ Nawroz
University. Four researches from three universities in Dohuk Governorate area
delivered six papers on the platform of Kurdistan Hall/ Nawroz University.
Meanwhile, it was presumed in advance that the symposium
attending-practitioners who usually teach the ESP programs would be of two
types majoring:
-
(Type 1) practitioners with TEFL-qualification,
and
-
(Type 2) practitioners with no TEFL-qualification
but they teach ESP programs depending on the experience of using English as medium
of instruction gained when they were postgraduate-students, for their medium of
study was English.
Hence, the writers of this
research-paper in advance designed and prepared two versions of questionnaire
forms to investigate the two types attending-practitioners’ readiness to teach
ESP. The questionnaire versions was built upon the six dimensions (each with 3
parameters) of Kumaravadivelu’s cyclic module of TEFL (2012); aiming at
investigating the extent the two types of practitioners could realize during
their performances of teaching an ESP program, in order then to make a sort of
comparison between the two groups’ achievements.
Two hypotheses were in mind:
-
the ESP practitioners with
TEFL-qualification could not fairly fulfill the objectives of teaching the
scientific programs other than the TEFL programs, though they majored in
English, and
-
the ESP practitioners with
non-TEFL-qualification could not fairly fulfill the objectives of their
major-scientific-programs with no experience of how to use English as a medium
of study.
Distributing the questionnaire forms, collecting them back,
analyzing the data, gathering the results, and making comparison between the
2-type-practitioners’ responses, the following findings were reached:
-
The two investigated types of ESP
practitioners could fairly satisfy the objectives built on Kumaravadivelu’s
cyclic module.
-
Significant differences were marked
in favor of the type 2 practitioners, in respect of satisfying the needs of
Kumaravadivelu’s cyclic module.
Finally,
certain recommendations were made about how to develop an advance ESP
discipline.
1-
Introduction
“A cartload of
bricks is not a house; we want a principle, a system, an integration.”
(Michel Serres
2004:2-cited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 1- cited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 1)
Though it is not easy to grasp wholly-satisfactory answers for certain
crucial questions, still the need is already there to find a specific rationale
to good teaching and teachers’ preparation. This is, because teacher
preparation, as a demand, would help us to find the ONE needed for specific
educational-situations. Hence, the concern of using English as a medium of
instruction has been brought in the view during the few recent decades and
to be under discussions as one of very important and vital topics in the teaching-learning
communities. Therefore, in our academic institutions and among the academics in
general, a clear cut differentiation has not been yet recognized between two
situations the English language is found to be involved in:
-
a situation in which English is found at the
same time as a target and medium of study, and
-
another situation in which English is
found as only a medium of study.
Unfortunately, most of the academics in our institutions might have
only little knowledge about the rationale of each type of the above-mentioned
two types of pedagogical situations. In the first type of situation English is found
to be at the same time; as a means of study and as the core scientific-subject
of study, while in the second type of situation English is found only as a means
to study core scientific-subjects other than the English language
scientific-subjects. Hence, discussions has initiated, among the TEFL
communities, to define the two types of situations where English is found as a
language of instruction. This, subsequently, paved the way to the rise of
relevant technical terms, related in particular to the second type of situation,
i.e., using English only as a medium of instruction, such as English
for Specific (Special) Purposes (ESP), English for Academic Purposes
(EAP), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Language
for Special Purposes (LSP) Non-Departmental English (NDE), Non-Linguistic
English (NLE), etc., and not to mention the appearance of tens
of relevant sub-terms to stand for various uses of English as a medium
of instruction, media, business, tourism, etc.
As a matter of fact, knowing such a distinction between two cases
of using English in the academic environment, very important relevant questions
might be cast about the core values related to each situation English is used
as a means of instruction, and not to mention questions about the
English programs and curricula adopted for the two cases, and also matters
related to the teacher needed in each one of the two cases.
During the academic 2015-2016 a very important Symposium
was held in Kurdistan Hall/ Nawroz University/ Duhok City under the title ‘ESP
Teaching in Kurdistan: Reality and Perspectives’. Modestly
speaking, the Symposium most-likely was a unique event of the
kind in Kurdistan Region-Iraq, if not in Iraq as whole.
A multitude of academics and officials from Duhok Governorate area’s
universities
(Zakho Uni., Duhok Uni., Jeehan Uni., and Nawroz Uni.) attended the event whether
as presenters or only attendees. The attendees of the event were assumingly-ranged
among two types:
1- Instructors majored in EFL and as
practitioners, they teach ESP, EAP, CLIL, etc., and
2- Instructors majored in scientific branches other than the EFL sciences, and as
practitioners, they use English as a medium of instruction,
The topics at issue in the symposium’s table of discussions were:
1- The
Experience of South-East Asian Countries in ESPT (Nawroz Uni.)
2- Designing
an ESP Program for the Student of Management (Duhok Uni.)
3- Teaching
English to Non-departmental Students: Confused Subject (Nawroz Uni.)
4- Problems
facing ESPT. (Zakho Uni.)
5- The
Teacher of English as Non-specialized Subject. (Nawroz Uni.)
6- The
Global Experience in ESPT Compared to its Counterpart in Iraq and Kurdistan.(Nawroz
Uni.)
Hence, stimulated by the type of the Symposium’s
presumed academic-attendance, the proposers of the Symposium
arranged and designed, in advance, two samples of questionnaire-forms to
inquire, through
specific methodological means, the above-mentioned assumed attendees according
to each type of the academic-attendee’s concern over English as a medium
of instruction,
2-
The Problem
Using English
as a medium of instruction, whether in a language classroom or in other scientific-branches’
classrooms, has recently aroused controversy over certain pedagogical issues. For
instance, even in a language classroom it largely happens to find an academic
majored in a sub-discipline of EFL, but still they might not be well-qualified,
in methods, to teach the meant sub-discipline as a professional. Consequently,
it happened to find an academic who is, though truly majored in EFL, but s/he is
found, in many cases, to teach sciences have nothing to do with his major
linguistic-branch sciences (see the introduction-type 1). So, the question here
is: Would such a teacher be fit enough to teach ESP (for brief,
if not necessary, henceforth the term ESP will stand for the other related
terms) Likewise, it happened to find an academic who majored in a scientific-branch
other than the EFL scientific-branches, and because English was the medium
of their study while they were postgraduate-students, they come to use English language
as a teaching-medium; though they might not be qualified enough to use English
as a language of instruction (see the Introduction-type 2). Once more the
question is: Would they be the proper instructors to use English as a medium of
teaching?
Furthermore, definitely,
one could presume that the problem is really there; there is a gap still
waiting to be bridged as a controversial matter to specify the fitness of both
types of practitioners and the approaches they use to teach ESP. Hence,
this study had to select a community of practitioners, and to adopt a sort of
model to measure their assumed pedagogical fitness, as far as it could be, for
carrying out their job as practitioners of ESP, etc.
In his Language
Teacher Education for a Global Society, B. Kumaravadivelu (2012) invented
a cyclic-modular model whose educational factors, as far as this paper aims at,
could be used as parameters to measure the above-mentioned two types academics’
comprehensibility of the core principles needed in their profession as
pedagogues (see the diagram below whose details will be discussed in a
succeeding section), and eventually to judge their educational fitness.
3-
Aims of the Study
As far as the investigation of the already-discussed-problem needs,
this paper adopted Kumaravadivelu’s model (Diagram No.1) as a tool to attempt
eliciting some findings about the pedagogical adequacy of approaches used in
classroom by two types of practitioners (types 1 & 2) above-mentioned in
the Introduction.
So, this study
aimed at:
1- Investigating
the satisfaction dimension of Kumaravadivelu cyclic-modular-model’s parameters
by practitioners majored in EFL in their teaching of ESP.
2- Investigating
the satisfaction dimension of Kumaravadivelu cyclic-modular-model’s parameters
by practitioners, majored in scientific branches other than the EFL’s,
in their teaching of ESP.
4-
Limits of the Study
This two-dimensional study is limited to investigate the
pedagogical status of type 1 & 2 (see the Introduction) ESP
practitioners (62 in number) who attended the above-mentioned Symposium
and how far they are stuck to certain educational parameters.
5-
Significance of the Study
The importance of the study lies in assumed usefulness of
information which would be elicited from the Symposium’s academic-attendees,
which might eventually be of assistance to identify what kind of practitioner
is needed in the ESP classroom, which all would be of a great help to
the TEFL community in general, and to the ESP practitioners and
researchers, in particular.
6-
Hypotheses
Considering most of the practitioners’ levels of professionalism
which might be partly “…because many start teaching before feeling fully
competent to do so…” (Senior 2006: 67), it was hypothesized that:
1- EFL-majored-academic-practitioners
of ESP, compared to non-EFL-Majored academic practitioners, could
hardly satisfy the needs of teaching scientific-subject syllabuses other than the EFL syllabuses
they majored in.
2- Non-EFL-majored-academic-practitioners
of ESP, compared to the EFL-majored-academic–practitioners, could hardly
satisfy the needs of using English as a medium of instruction, depending
only on their knowledge about English as a medium of study when they were
postgraduate-students.
7-
Related Literature
As a matter of fact, almost since the late-1940s, English has
become, among other languages, the dominant global language of science
(Montgomery 2013: 57, 107). The more English language has been used as a medium
of instruction to teach various new scientific-branches, the more sophisticated
and complicated is becoming the rationale and scope of TEFL and related
disciplines. This is happening in respect of theorizing both: the purpose
for, and the way, of using English as medium of instruction. Hence, apart
from the ordinary use of English in disciplines such as TEFL studies, or linguistic studies, or
English literature studies, using English as a medium of instruction,
all over the world, to teach various scientific-branches for various purposes,
has attracted an increasing attention from the TEFL field’s research-community
(Crystal 2012:112). After the rapid spread of terms like ESP, EAP, LSP, CLIL,
NDE, etc. demands have emerged to define the basics of ESP, whether in respect
of the sort of curriculum needed, the sort of teacher needed, and the sort of
methods needed, in order to make the ESP discipline a well-oiled machine (Shalan
2008: 23-28).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ESP as a notion could date back to 1940s in the USA, as one of the
implications within the applied linguistics rationale, when the linguists
needed to apply analytical approaches to develop language-courses to the
military. (Rees Miller- ed. in Arnoff
& Rees
Miller 2006:638). Furthermore, still in the USA, the demands emerged to develop
socially-normalizing language-courses for the immigrants’ purposes (Shalan
2008:10). Then, after the English language spread as a result to the British
colonial geographical dominance which started during the 16th
century the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 gave the English language
a very golden-opportunity to be a dominant global language of science (Crystal
2003: 96-115). Thence, a global larger attention was paid to the use of English
as an EFL, ESL, which in its turn provided the rationale for using English as a
medium of instruction mostly all over world, which in its turn provided
the opportunity to the breeding ground for the development of various and
different related terms such as ESP, EAP, etc., besides tens of sub-terms
related to various purposes (for instruction needs, after study perspectives,
business management, social normalization, etc.), which all had to do with the
use of English as a medium of communication, especially in South-East
Asian countries, whose academic-institutions, if it were, revolutionized the
TEFL, in order to create new approaches to use English as a medium of
instruction in particular, and as a means of communication in
general, at different levels; curricula design, methods of teaching, and in
particular in respect of the practitioner’s education as an important factor in
the progress of using English as a language of instruction (Shalan 2008:
10-30).
Therefore, as part of the curriculum map, some argue that ESP
English could be viewed as a separate subject, but with genres related to other
scientific-subjects, which in English appears to play a different role and
acquiring a further dimension, as a medium-language to teach other subjects.
Furthermore, Stevens (1988-cited in Shalan 2008: 23) identifies teacher
preparations and special teaching materials, as essentials to the success of
TESP.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Controversially, if being apparently loyal to the traditional
Grammar-Translation Approach of TEFL, and most of the EFL-majored practitioners
(Type 1- the Introduction) are almost found to insist on their argument that
the student, in the ESP classroom, is to be taught a common core English
syllabus in which grammar and translation are predominant, rather than
specially designed subject-related ESP course, it could be almost found that the
other side of the practitioners (Type 2- the Introduction), teachers of subjects
other than English-subject, who have antagonist attitudes to (type 1)
practitioners, for even they might go to the extremes as to feeling that type 1
practitioners might be dabbling into an area where they know next to nothing. (Shalan
2008: 21).
Hence, specifying the objectives has become a key demand, because
specifying the objectives would definitely indicate what kind of an ESP
practitioner is need to meet the said- objectives.
As far as it concerns the teaching of any ESP program, five
objectives could be specified here as follows:
-
To reveal subject-specific language.
-
To develop target performance
competencies.
-
To teach underlying knowledge.
-
To develop strategic competence.
-
To foster critical awareness.
(Basturkmen 2006 :133)
It is completely apparent that between the lines of Basturkmen one
could easily guess that without putting the above-used verbs (reveal,
develop, teach, develop, foster) in action no one of the said-objectives could be achieved apart
from an ESP practitioner who should be well-awake of his job. For
instance, with implicit reference to the EFL-majored ESP practitioner,
Basturkmen borrowed from Early:
“The ESP
teacher … does not in any straightforward sense conform to the image of ‘knower’.
It is true that he or she possesses specialist knowledge of the target
language…; he or she fortunate enough to possess some familiarity with the
subject matter relevant to the learner’s area of study…”
(Early- cited
in Basturkmen 2006:139)
In her Preparing ESP Practitioners for the Unfamiliar, the
importance of Carreon's (1996) study lies in the fact that it deals with the dilemma
of the non-specialist teacher of the ESP courses. As an ESP practitioner in De
La Salle University/Philippines, Edwina S. Carreon significantly admits that:
"…teachers
like I, having a background only in literary studies were unable to do very
much to modify tasks and exercises to suit our comfort level, for luck of a
better understanding of ESP and language teaching principle." (ibid: 8)
Hence, on the other hand, Basturkmen, as though to highlight a role
of a genre-specific-practitioner, borrowed from Hyland writing:
“The
features of a text … are influenced by the community for which it was written
and so best understood, and taught, through the specific genre of
communication.”
(Hyland 2002b
:41- cited in Basturkmen 2006: 54)
Therefore, the role of the practitioner in the multidimensional ESP
phenomenon is still controversial in the context of using English as global
language of science, on both sides; the practitioner and the student. On part
of the students, the phenomenon is faced with not few problems in respect of
how to satisfy the demands of students being taught in their native-language
and expected to learn in a language which is not their native one (ibid :620).
Meanwhile, on part of the practitioner, the inquiry is about should the ESP
practitioner, if not majored in EFL, ‘think linguistically’ or not (Baily,
Beverley, & Freeman, in Spolsky & Hult -ed. 2008: 611), i.e., “…how
teachers come to understand language as an integral element in the content they
teach.” (ibid: 611). Since ESP teaching approaches are traditionally found to
be content-based ones, ‘teaching linguistically’ might need curricular-designed
activities in order to achieve approximation to the curricular content. By
contrast: should the EFL-majored-practitioner be qualified, to somewhat extent,
in the ESP scientific-branch he is suggested to teach? In his Language for
Special purposes: Pedagogy, A. John answered the question saying: “… LSP
[ESP] teachers and curriculum designers are much more accountable than
‘general’ language teachers.” (Johns;-cited in Spolsky 1999:634). Hence, A.
Johns, furthermore, argued that it is for this reason, good ESP pedagogy should
vary from a country to another, from school to another, and from class to
another. As for the practitioner’s appropriateness, A. Johns argued that
although teachers who were prepared in linguistics or methods of TEFL are
most-likely able to go with a syllabus that is challenging that their
colleagues who were prepared to teach or another field literature; still,
regardless the approaches they follow to teach an ESP course, they might not understand
the principles and theoretical framework on which the said-approaches are based
(Ibid :634).
As in any ESP classroom, practitioners and students, all over the
world, could hardly share a common language for study. Baily, Burkett, and
Freeman (Spolsky & Hult .ed- 2008:606) argued for ‘a double bind can
develop’. They explain that “…language of instruction can seem relatively ‘transparent’
medium through which teaching is done.” (ibid: 606) Thus, they explained
that though language might still ‘translucent’ to students, they could
achieve the
‘double bind’ when they come to learn the language through understanding the
genre content. Putting emphasis on the role of the teacher [practitioner], in
his Educational Linguistics, James Paul Gee argued that
“…specific….languages are acquired via yet more direct and overt instruction.”
(Gee -in Arnoff & Rees-Miller -ed. 2006:653). Furthermore, generally
speaking, Gee
furthermore emphasized the role of the teacher’s approaches to the students
explaining that it is the role of the teacher to lead his students to control
meta-awareness about the medium of instruction that is fundamental to real
understanding of the content. In additional, he argued that when a problem is
resided as a ‘deficit’ inside the student, it is rather a problem resides in
the medium of interaction in which the teacher is used, and which might at
the same time indicate a lack of necessary educational knowledge to teach the
target genre (Gee -in Arnoff & Rees-Miller –ed. 2006: 663).
In the course of the professional ESP development, the concept of ‘genre’
has emerged as a distinctive feature of teaching any ESP content. The concept has been highlighted much,
in particular, in relation with the most needed two skills of language use: reading
and writing (Yoshida 1998; Sinhaneti 1994; Shukor and Others 1993- cited in
Shalan 2008: 13, 15,18).
To explain the importance of reading and writing as
two-strongly connected skills in the ESP courses, and thus, as though to argue
that reading as a skill is not any more a completely-passive language skill,
and also as though to put the ball in the practitioner’s court again,
Basturkmen argued for what she calls the
Input to Output concepts, which means that the students
should be provided with input [reading] which could be used as a basis
for production [writing], and she put the failure of the practitioners
in this respect as follows: “A common failing in teaching is to expect high
level production without giving sufficient input.” (Basturkmen
2006: 117), and this, in other words, means that the practitioner should choose
specific items as focus of instruction, in order to be presented and
highlighted by her/himself. Hence, Johnson & Johnson highlighted a very
important question about the role of the ESP practitioner if they should
specialize, or not, in the subjects or professions of their learners, or even
be practitioners in those areas and only subsequently trained in ELT or ESP.”
(Johnson & Johnson 1999: 109).
Assuming that most of the ESP practitioners, whether EFL-majored
ones or other subjects-majored, are assumingly good as pedagogues, but still
the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher, as Senior 2006: 74)
put it, is that “ … a great teacher was one who constantly strove for
excellence.”
How can excellent teaching be realized?
In his Language Teachers Education for Global Society: A
Modular Model for Knowing, Analyzing,
Recognizing, Doing and Seeing (2012) (see Figure No.1), B.
Kumaravadivelu created a model which can be adopted, for the purpose of this
study, as scale to investigate how far the ESP practitioners attained the
presumed excellency in their teaching within the frame of English as a Global
language of science.
As it is seen in Figure No.1, in the core of the
model three parameters are proposed to functionally-operate as spiral principles
for the pedagogue’s education, and to offer “a pattern that connects the role
of learners, teachers, and teacher educators” (Kumaravadivelu 2001: 557- cited
in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 12). To summarize, these three principles are:
1- Particularity: This, in brief, means that pedagogy must be constructed on a
holistic interpretation of particular situations.
2- Practicality: Which broadly means connecting theory to practice, and narrowly
means the teacher’s skill to monitor their pedagogy effectiveness.
3- Possibility: It refers to favoring the education programs that raise
sociopolitical consciousness to meet the quest of subjectivity and
self-identity (Chris Weeden 2997: 21- cited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 15).
(Kumaravadivelu
2012 : 1-19)
Furthermore, the peripheral vision of the model can show five spiral-triangular
modules, each with three parameters connected via an assumed dynamic means to
the three core spiral-principles, which the practitioner should pay attention
to:
1- Knowing: The emphasis here is more on the ways of practitioner’s knowing,
as an action, than on the body of knowledge; to realize her/his:
·
Professional Knowledge as received
wisdom from experts who are engaged in knowledge production on teaching in a
given discipline.
·
Procedural Knowledge which is about
facilitating the flow of the lesson and guiding it in the right direction.
·
Personal Knowledge which
signifies the pedagogue’s thought processes through observations, experiences, and
education programs.
(ibid: 20-36)
2- Analyzing: This means that the practitioner should develop procedures to
analyze and understand the following:
·
Learner Needs which
represents the gap between what is and what should be (Brindley 1984- cited in
Kumaravadivelu 2012: 38)
·
Learner Motivation whether
instrumental or integrative have constant and meaningful effects on learning
and on behavioral indices of learning (Gardener & Maclntyre 1991: 69- cited
in Kumaravadivelu
2012: 41).
·
Learner Autonomy: With reference
to the concept of ‘learn to learn’, it is defined as “the ability to take
charge of one’s own learning” (Holec 1981: 3- cited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 46).
(Kumaravadivelu 2012: 37-54)
3- Recognizing: This means using recognition to identify the teaching Self as
it depends largely on the practitioner’s awareness of:
-
Teacher Identities: Recognizing the
teacher identities as constructed ones at the complex intersections
between individual, social, national,
and global realities.
-
Teacher Beliefs: Recognizing how
the practitioner’s beliefs shape the educational dispositions and
decision-making on the part of present and prospective teachers.
-
Teacher Values: Recognizing
that “values education…..encourages reflections on choices, exploration of
opportunities and commitment to responsibilities,…” (Taylor 1994: 3- cited in
Kumaravadivelu 2012: 65)
(Kumaravadivelu 2012: 55-77)
4- Doing: It relates to the act of the following:
-
Teaching: This means
doing the act of teaching as though to maximize the “appropriate learning
opportunities to reach the intended learning goals” (David Crabbe 2003:
31-cited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 80), and to monitor the students’ personal
transformation in the way they “understand themselves, their social
surroundings, their histories, and their possibilities for the future,...”
(Norton & Toohey 2004: 1- cited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 83).
-
Theorizing: This relates
to the increasing of the practitioner’s “awareness of why it is that they teach
the way they do, along with the commitment to improving their ability to
articulate that awareness,…” (Julian Edge 2001: 653- cited in Kumaravadivelu
2012: 84).
-
Dialogizing: This almost
has to do with “…a stance toward experiences and ideas- a willingness to
wonder, to ask questions, to seek to understand by collaborating with others in
the attempt to make answers to them...” (Wells 1999: 121- cited in
Kumaravadivelu 2012: 93).
(Kumaravadivelu 2012: 78-98)
5- Seeing: It relates “…to see-as and do-as that allows us to have a feel
for problems that do not fit existing rules.” Schon 1983- cited in
Kumaravadivelu 2000:361- recited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 100), in order to
realize seeing:
-
Learners Perspectives: This refers
to the “…medium through which we may better understand both the process and the
outcomes of learner participation” (Michael Breen 2001: 129-cited in
Kumaravadivelu 2012: 103), as a negotiator, problem-solver, builder, investor,
and struggler.
-
Teacher perspectives: This refers
to the practitioners’ attempts to “…ensure that the social atmosphere of the
classroom is neither too serious nor too light-hearted, neither too heavy nor
too frothy-sensing that the balance between these two extremes is desirable.”
Farrell 2006: 272- cited in Kumaravadivelu 2012: 106).
-
Observer perspectives: It is
believed that “… peer observation offers opportunities for practicing teachers
to monitor and evaluate their own teaching acts with the help of their
colleagues…” (Kumaravadivelu 2012: 109).
(Kumaravadivelu 2012: 99-121)
Significantly, it is worth-mentioning that when naming the
modules and their sub-triangular-parameters, Kumaravadivelu used the -ing-gerund
form instead of the related noun form (e.g. knowing instead of knowledge,
recognizing instead of recognition, etc.), this is, in order to
make the parameters more powerful and dynamic in action on part of the
practitioner.
Finally, in his Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to
English Language Teaching, pedagogically Jim Scrivener put it this way:
“ESP contrasts with
the rather mischievous acronym TENOR (Teaching English for No Obvious Reason);
it implies that we are going to take the client’s needs and goals more
seriously when planning the course the course,…,to tailor everything to his or
her character and particular requirements.” (Scrivener 2011:
310)
Last but not the least, in their Language Teaching and Learning
in the Postlinguistic Condition, Nelson and Kern borrowed from Kumaravadivelu
(1994):
“Post-method
condition empowers practitioners to construct classroom-oriented theories of
practice …. [and] enables practitioners to generate location-specific,
classroom-oriented innovative practices.”
(Kumaravadivelu
1994: 28-29, Nelson & Kern, in Asagoff, Mckay, Hu, and Renandya –ed. 2012:
47-48)
8-
Definitions of Basic Terms
1- ESP English for Specific (Special) Purposes: The English used for
various purposes (immigrants’ normalization in new communities, academic
instruction, business administration, social communication, etc.) (Richard
& Schmidt 2002:186)
2- EAP English for Academic Purposes: The English used as medium of
instruction in schools, universities, and other academic institutions to teach
scientific-branches other than the linguistic scientific-branches. (Richard &
Schmidt 2002:173)
3- CLIL Content & Language Integrative Learning: A European term
dating back to 1994, and refers to teaching content through a language other
than the first language of the learners, which eventually indicates using English
to learn subject content. (Scrivener 2011: 327)
4- Genre: A term is used to refer to the types of ‘text’ as distinguished by
their function or their form (Mattews 2007: 157; Harmer 2011: 327)
5- LSP Language for Special Purposes: This term is derived from the
concept of ‘specificity’, i.e., “each pedagogical situation and each group of
learners is considered to be new and different” (Johns- ed. in Spolsky 1999:
633
6- NDE Non-Departmental English: A locally-invented term, among the Iraqi
academic institutions, which mostly-like stands for a function like that of the
EAP.
7-
Practitioner: A term is
used to refer to the instructor who practices teaching ESP (Shalan
2008: 23-4)
9-
Procedures:
9-1
Population & Questionnaire
The said Symposium’s
attending practitioners as whole were taken as a population of the study.
In favor of the
questionnaire as a procedure to elicit benefits from discussions carried out in
a situation like the said Symposium’s event, Harmer argued that:
“Questionnaires are useful because, by being pre-planned, they
ensure that both questioners and respondents have something to say to each
other.” (Harmer 2007: 352)
Hence, the
dimensions (a core one plus 5 peripheral dimension as seen in the Diagram
No.1) of Kumaravadivelu modular model’s parameters (grouped in three
parameters for each dimension) were used as the questionnaire’s
statement-items, and were designed to
best-suit the status of the two-types of the said Symposium’s academic
attendees (see the Introduction) as follows:
1-
A questionnaire
form to address the attending practitioners type 1 (27 attendees).
2-
A
questionnaire form to address the attending practitioners type 2 (attendees).
The two types
of questionnaire forms were distributed during the Symposium’s
event to elicit any information about the ESP attending practitioner (Pra.
henceforth) educational-fitness in using English as a medium of instruction.
The feeding-back questionnaire forms were given back as follows:
-
For
type 1 only 19 out of 27, and
-
For
type 2 only 23 out of 31.
9-2
Data Statistical Analysis
Using the Chi-square program to analyze the responses of the two
types of ESP practitioners, analyzing the data gained, and then surveying the
results of the statistical analysis in table No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, only in
two dimensions significant differences could be seen between the performances
of the two types of ESP practitioners (Type 1 1 nd 2), in favor of type 2
practitioners; satisfying the objectives of the parameters given in the six
dimensions of Kumaravadivelu’s cyclic module model (Figure No. 1)
as follow:
-
Dimension 1 (Operating
Principles)/ parameter 2 (Particularity): The significant
difference is seen of (.050) degree between the performances of the two types
of practitioners in favor of (type 2).
-
Dimension 2 (Knowing)/
parameter 3 (Procedural Knowledge): The significant difference is seen of (.050)
degree between the performances of the two types of practitioners in favor of
(type 2).
9-3
Further Comments
As for the further comments presumed to be given by the questioned
practitioners as part of the questionnaire, only two practitioners gave further
comments as follows:
1- (Type
1 practitioner/CoL-NzU): “I believe that the whole system of instruction,
from A to Z, is in a mess. A comprehensive plan for the region is unavailable.”
2- (Type
2 practitioner/CoAE-NzU): “The form of the questions might not be clear
enough for some participants.”
10-Conclusions
and Recommendations
10-1
Conclusions
Analyzing the results, to conclude:
1- Responses
of both two types of ESP practitioners, EFL-majored-practitioners and
non-EFL-majored-practitioners, could fairly respond to Kumaravadivelu model’s
parameters, and thus seemed to be satisfying modestly the pedagogical
principles of teaching ESP programs, though with the required minimum.
2- Type
2 (non-EFL-majored-practitioners) seemed to respond better than type 1 (EFL-majored-practitioners),
at least in two dimensions of Kumaravadivelu cyclic model’s parameters. This can be reasoned out
and justified by declaring that the non-EFL-majored practitioners worked in
their very field of knowledge; in addition, they could acquire experience in using
English as a medium of instruction while they were postgraduate-students, which
made them aware enough of how to address their students in English.
3- The
further comment coming from a practitioner/CoL-NzU (see section 9-3) has
figured out a very important fact about the absence of a national plan for the
ESP discipline, which can be achieved only by collaboration between the major
academic institutions in Kurdistan Region.
4- The
further comment coming from a practitioner/CoAE-NzU (see section 9-3) has
figured out another important fact about the gap in the
non-EFL-majored-practitioners’ knowledge about the register used in the EFL discipline
community, which could be bridged by giving type-2-practitioners training
courses on how to use English as medium of instruction..
10-2
Recommendations
The topics which were of issue on the above-mentioned Symposium’s
table of discussion have uncovered the so many problems coming across the
teaching of ESP programs in general. The discussions marked in particular the
need to recommend the following:
1-
A national plan of an educational
ESP network summarizes the needs and the goals of the ESP discipline as in the
diagram below:
2-
The need to develop a specialized
ESP unit in every university’s department of Scientific Development &
Training to be responsible of reviewing and renewing, at least
every-other-year, the ESP programs design of every scientific department.
References
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Alsagoff,
Lubna & Mackay, Sandra Lee & Hu, Guangwei & Renandya, Willy A.
(2012) edited. Principles and practices for Teaching English as an
International Language. Routledge USA & UK
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Aronoff,
Mark & Rees-Miller, Janie (2006) edited. Handbook of Linguistics.
Blackwell Publishing. USA & UK
-
Basturkmen,
Helen (2006) Ideas and Options in English for Specific Purposes. Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates Inc. New Jersey. USA
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Branden,Kris
Van den (2006) edited. Task-Based Language Education. Cambridge Applied
Linguistics. UK & New York
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Carreon,
Edwina; Balarbar Corazon V. (1997), A Paradigm for ESP Materials Preparation-
a research paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Teachers of English as a
Second or Other Language (the Ohio State Univ. Columbus 1997), Dela Salle Univ.
Manila/Philippines.
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Crystal,
David (2012) English as a Global Language. Cambridge University Press.
UK
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Crystal,
David (2003) THE CAMBRIDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Cambridge University Press. UK
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Harmer,
Jeremy (2007) The Practice of Teaching English Language. Pearson:
Longman. UK
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Hedge,
Tricia (2003) Teaching and Learning in the Second language Classroom.
Oxford University Press. UK
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Johnson,
Keith & Johnson, Helen (1999) edited. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied
Linguistics. Blackwell Publishers. USA & UK
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Kumaravadivelu,
B.(2012) Language Teacher Education for Global Society. Routledge USA
& UK
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Mattews,
P. H. 2007) OXFORD CONCISE DICTIONARY OF LINGUISTICS. Oxford University
Press. UK
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Montgomery,
Scott L. (2013) Does Science Need a Global Language? English and the Future
of Research. The University of Chicago Press. USA
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Jack C. & Farrell, Thomas S. C. (2012) PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR
LANGUAGE TEACHERS: Strategies for Teacher Learning. Cambridge University
Press. USA.
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Scrivener,
Jim (2011) Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language
Teaching. MACMILLAN. UK
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Shalan,
Ahmed Khalis (2008) EVALUATING THE COURSE OF ENGLISH FOR STUDETNS AT THE
COLLEGES OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION' AND SUGGESTING
AN UP-TO-DATE ONE. MA theses.
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Senior,
Rose M. (2006) The Experience of language Teaching. Cambridge University
Press. UK
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Spolsky,
Bernard & Hult, Francis M. (2008) edited. The handbook of Educational
Linguistics. Blackwell Publishers. UK
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Spolsky,
Bernard (1999) edited. CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS.
Elsevier Science Ltd. Oxford
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H. G. (2003) Defining Issues in English language Teaching. Oxford. UK
________________________________
-
www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/clildbate/o,,1469879,oo.html.
(CLIL)
Appendixes
App. I
Names of the Jury who examined the questionnaire forms:
1- Dr.
Hussein Ali Gargari (Prof.)/ College of Languages/ Nawroz University
2- Dr.
Chachaan Jum'ah Mohammed (Assist Prof.)/Department of Psychological &
Educational Sciences /Faculty of Basic education/University of Duhok
3- Dr.
Sami Abdul-Aziz Al-Ma'mouri (Prof.)/Department of English/College of Basic
Education/ University of Diyala.
مــلــخــص الــبــحـــــــث Abstract in Arabic
في شهر كانون الثاني 2016 عقدت ندوة تحت عنوان "تدريس الإنكليزية
لأغراض خاصة في كردستان: الواقع و الآفاق". و كان مقترح إقامة الندوة قد قدمه
كاتبا هذه الورقة البحثية. و عند إنعقاد الندوة طرحت على طاولة مناقشات الندوة ستة أوراق بحثية لأربعة باحثين من ثلاث جامعات
في منطقة محافظة دهوك. و كان واضعا مقترح الندوة و خطة هذا البحث قد إفترضا أن
جمهور مدرسي مادة "الإنكليزية لأغراض خاصة" الذين سيحضرون الندوة سيكون
من نوعين:
1-
النوع الأول:
مدرسون لمادة "الإنكليزية لأغراض خاصة متخصصون بتدريس الإنكليزية لغة أجنبية
2-
النوع الثاني:
مدرسون لمادة "الإنكليزية لأغراض خاصة" غير متخصصين بتدريس الإنكليزية
لغة أجنبية، و لكن لغة دراستهم أثناء دراساتهم العليا كانت الإنكليزية.
و من هنا . . وضع الباحثان تصميم
إستبيان بنسختين موجهتين لكلا النوعين من التدريسيين. و فقرات الإستبيان مستقاة من
موديل (كيومارافادفيلو Kumaravadivelu 2012) الذي يحتوي
على ستة ابعاد كل منها بثلاثة فقرات يصلح تطبيقها جميعا من قبل التدريسيين كمؤشرات
على الإنجاز المهني للتدريسسين عند تدريسهم مادة "الإنكليزية لأغراض
خاصة".
بتوزيع
إستمارات الإستبيان، و جمع إستجابات المـُستَبيـَنين، و تحليل المعلومات إحصائيا،
أفرز البحثس الإستنتاجات التالية:
1-
كل المجموعتين بإمكانهما تحقيق الأهداف المتوخات من وراء مؤشرات موديل
كيومارافادفيلو تحقيقا متواضعا، و
2-
أظهر البحث فروقات نوعية في صالح
إنجاز النوع الثاني من مدرسي مادة "الإنكليزية لأغراض خاصة" في بعدين من
البعاد الستة لمؤشرات موديل كيومارافادفيلو.
و أخيرا و
ليس آخرا وضعت الدراسة توصيات تخص تطوير تدريس مادة "الإنكليزية لأغراض
خاصة".
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