Teacher of English for specific purposes: Najor roles and difficulties

Of their five major roles of a teacher, a course designer and material provider, a collaborator, a researcher and an evaluator, this paper will mainly focus on the roles of being a teacher, a researcher and an evaluator following David Nunan’s observations.

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VAI TRÒ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH

VÀ NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN GẶP PHẢI

Vũ Minh Thy

Trường Đại học Hà Nội

*

Tác giả liên hệ, e-mail: thuyvm@gmail.com

Tóm tắt: Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành (ESP) ñã ñược

ñưa vào chương trình học trong năm thứ nhất của sinh

viên tại Khoa Đào tạo Đại cương, Trường Đại học Hà

Nội kể từ năm 2005 ñể chuẩn bị tốt cho sinh viên

những kĩ năng và kiến thức cần thiết cho các chuyên

ngành Tài chính Ngân hàng, Quản trị Kinh doanh, Du

lịch, Quốc tế học, Khoa học máy tính và Kế toán Trong

khóa học này, sinh viên ñược cung cấp các kĩ năng

tiếng Anh chung và các kiến thức trong các môn

chuyên ngành Vì thế, khóa học này yêu cầu giảng viên

phải có các kiến thức và kĩ năng chuyên ngành khác

biệt với một giảng viên tiếng Anh nói chung Trong số 5

nhiệm vụ của họ, là giáo viên, là người thiết kế và phát

triển học liệu, là người ñiều phối, người nghiên cứu và

người kiểm tra - ñánh giá, bài viết này tập trung chính

vào nhiệm vụ của một giáo viên, người ñiều phối và

người kiểm tra- ñánh giá dựa trên các quan sát của

David Nunan Các vấn ñề quan trọng khi giảng dạy một

khóa học ESP ñược phân bổ thành: (a) những kì vọng

từ người học; (b) kì vọng từ ñồng nghiệp; và (c) kì vọng

của bản thân sẽ ñược thảo luận trong bài viết này Các

tài liệu về phương pháp giảng dạy chương trình tiếng

Anh chuyên ngành và chương trình học tiếng Anh nói

chung sẽ ñược xem xét cùng với những kinh nghiệm

của chúng tôi trong quá trình giảng dạy các môn

chuyên ngành bằng tiếng Anh

T khóa: Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành (ESP), giáo viên

dạy tiếng Anh chuyên ngành, kiến thức chuyên ngành

Abstract: English for Specific Purposes has been

integrated into the curriculum of the first year of the students in Foundation Studies Department, Hanoi University since 2005 in an attempt to better prepare students for language skills and contents for their major studies in Finance and Banking, Business Administration, Tourism, International Studies, Computer Science, and Accounting In this course, students are equipped with both English language skills, which is similar to General English studies, and also with the content knowledge in their own fields of major study Therefore, it requires ESP practitioners a variety

of professional knowledge and skills different from General English teachers Of their five major roles of a teacher, a course designer and material provider, a collaborator, a researcher and an evaluator, this paper will mainly focus on the roles of being a teacher, a researcher and an evaluator following David Nunan’s observations The key issues in ESP curriculum delivery are categorized into: (a) expectation from students, (b) expectation from colleagues; and (c) self-expectation will be discussed in this paper The literature of ESP and General English teaching will be taken into consideration with the experience of the researcher and other colleagues in their conduct of the ESP course

Keywords: English for Specific Purposes, ESP

practitioners, expectation, content knowledge

TEACHER OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES:

MAJOR ROLES AND DIFFICULTIES

Introduction

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) refers to

the language of research and instruction that

focuses on the specific communicative needs and

practices of particular social groups Specifically,

in Hanoi University for the freshman students, ESP is included in the 3rd term of their first year which covers 6 particular majors, namely Finance and Banking, Computer Science, Tourism,

Tiu ban 2: Đào to chuyên ngành bng ngoi ng

International Studies, Accounting, and Business

Administration The aim of this course is to

introduce to students a pool of vocabulary and

initial concepts of their majors to better prepare

for their courses afterwards

This course is conducted weekly in 10 weeks,

each session lasts for 5 periods of class The

teaching materials are carefully selected from

textbooks, journals and magazines with the same

theme of what students are going to study in the

coming years to familiarise students with the

content knowledge that they will work on

On delivering this particular courses ESP

teachers often encounter a number of problems that

might influence their methods of lesson delivery

and minimize the positive effects of this course

Expectations from students

The roles of the teacher in ESP course are quite

different from the role of a conventional General

English teacher They are expected by their

students to be something better and more

professional than General English teachers in that

they should possess a more insightful and

comprehensive breadth of the content knowledge

They are expected to come up into a class with

knowledge that is not English – English but

English of the subject matter

A General English teacher encountering this

peculiar role might find confusion while carrying

out their daily teaching task They should

negotiate between their conventional experiences

of English teaching and the subject matter taken

by English English in these classes is not a focus

but it is used as a communicative tool to transfer

the knowledge of subject to students, which

requires teachers to switch from one task of

teaching to another teaching

Moreover, students are in due need of

knowledge, which encourages teacher to seek for

more resources to help them while the teachers

could not be sure how much is enough to their students If the knowledge is too shallow, the lesson is nothing much like a reading lesson; in contrast, in case it is too intensive, the teachers themselves find it challenging for them to either comprehend the content properly or teach the subject suitably

Expectations from colleagues

ESP teachers also receive expectation from their colleagues as they are supposed to provide their students with sufficient English skills of reading, writing, speaking, listening so that their students find the least difficulties when attending ESP course in their following years Nevertheless, many students, despite already having had a year

of learning English and being prepared for the studying majors in English find it significantly difficult to deal with this kind of English in their studies Teachers from major faculties and students themselves have mentioned the obstacles

of understanding English, not as their subject studies but as a tool of understanding the subject matter Students have to spend more time grasping the knowledge and facing up with more difficulties

to reproduce them in speaking and writing

ESP teachers’ self expectation

Teachers of General English at the FSD hold

an expectation to provide what is the best to students in terms of language content and subject matter With the strong expectation to prepare for their students in following years, all teachers do spend a considerable amount of time and effort producing materials and syllabus, and seeking for the most appropriate teaching methods The teachers are ready to transfer the knowledge to the students, but the question of the amount of knowledge is a major issue The students might find the lessons boring and unnecessary if the material is merely similar to the reading that they have done many times in other English practice lessons In contrast, they find it far too challenging

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as they have never experienced the materials

which highlight and require their true

understanding of the overall content rather than

focusing on individual meanings of words or

phrases or specific questions Therefore, to

facilitate the process of students’ understanding

the teachers needs to provide them with sufficient

vocabulary in those specific fields, the

background information leading to the specific

content of the materials, and guide them through

all of these issues There are many tasks which

require the teachers to own a very reasonable and

sensible sense of students’ understanding and the

content knowledge, to act as a facilitator and an

instructor to work out the content of the materials

with their students

Suggestions

Teachers are considered as strangers in a

strange land who are reluctant dwellers in strange

and uncharted land In the book titled "English for

Specific Purposes", Hutchinson & Waters (1987)

have outlined the problems that ESP teachers

encounter are the lack of authenticity of textbooks,

the new knowledge that teachers have to cope

with and the change in the status of English

Language Teaching

The question of proper teaching materials has

been taken into consideration by the quest of

authenticity of the text Being selected as a major

part of the learning process, the texts, which have

been utilized in each lesson, should act as strongly

influential tools of the teachers It can be used to

prove how much information learners can achieve

from the reading by different strategies The text

can be a particular learning activity e.g., jigsaw

activities, or to illustrate a concept or a highly

specialized terms It can be the demonstration for

reading comprehension and learners’ motivation

as it emphasizes the real world application of the

language The teachers determine which aspects

of skills and knowledge should be highlighted in

the lesson and thus chooses a piece that can serves for developing more than one skill The material acts as a link between existing knowledge and the new information It is a source of new vocabulary, communicative and reading skills which can be the combination of printed texts with audio-cassette or radio-audio-cassette that means receptive with productive activities to enhance different skills of students (Bracaj, 2014)

Moreover, a motivational atmosphere should

be maintained within the classroom as it acts as an internal drive that encourages students to pursue a course of actions to finally achieve their ultimate aims Therefore, the role of motivation in each activity is inevitable Teachers should consider the choice of material as what involves in the learning process so it should be proper account of knowledge and competence of the teachers to effectively use the materials

The issue of negotiating the roles of a General English teachers and ESP teachers as they struggle

to master both language and subject matter beyond their previous experience should be taken into cautious consideration The role that researchers suggest that ESP teachers should adopt is their adaptability and flexibility ESP teachers become negotiators with regard to learning process with certain expectations

The knowledge and motivation of ESP teachers should not be the very specialist subject information; instead they should become interested students of the subject matters which they deliver in their daily teaching

What the ESP teachers require is the positive attitude towards the ESP content, knowledge of fundamental principles of the subject areas and the awareness of how much they probably know (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987) What is more, the teachers can prepare themselves anytime during the preparation process is the question of “Who”,

“Where”, “Why” and “When” (Hutchinson &

Tiu ban 2: Đào to chuyên ngành bng ngoi ng

Waters, 1987) which directly connects with the

nature of their particular target and learning

situation (Bracaj, 2014) The ESP teachers should

also make learners aware of the lack of specificity

of their needs and allow them to have freedom to

discover for themselves by doing their research

and analysis, find texts from different areas for

them to compare so that they could see the

difference of language use from one content to

another and withdraw the required valuable

techniques or skills If the learners enjoy what

they are doing, they are far less to complain

The ESP instructors should collaborate closely

with the specialists of subject matters, who are the

their colleagues in the major faculties, and also

with their students By working out what their students should study and in what way they can study most effectively, the ESP teachers might find a space of their own freedom and power to carry out the tasks of both General English teachers and ESP practitioners

REFERENCES

1 Bracaj, M (2014) Teaching English for Specific

Purposes and Teacher Training European Scientific

Journal, 10 (2)

2 Hyland, K (2007) English for Specific Purposes,

International Handbook of English Language Teaching

(pp 391-402) Springer International Handbooks of

Education

3 Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A (1987) English for

Specific Purposes: A learning-centered approach

Glasgow, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press

The issue of negotiating the roles of a General English teachers and ESP teachers as they...

of learning English and being prepared for the studying majors in English find it significantly difficult to deal with this kind of English in their studies Teachers from major faculties and. ..

nature of their particular target and learning

situation (Bracaj, 2014) The ESP teachers should

also make learners aware of the lack of specificity

of their needs and allow