SOME PROBLEMS OF TEACHING ENGLISH FOR SPECIAL

PURPOSES TO STUDENTS OF TECHNICAL SPECIALITIES

AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL

Aldengozhayeva E.S. – English teacher of Almaty University of Power Engineering and Telecommunications

Nowadays it is still urgent to discuss what to teach and how to teach a foreign language taking into account the objective social and professional needs of future specialists in our country. Besides businessmen, tradesmen, engineers, scientists and scholars all over the world must know English because it is the international means of exchange of information and experience.

At the beginning of the university course of foreign language teaching it is

necessary to formulate its actual – and realistic aims and tasks. Students must know from the start what variety of the foreign language, and to what extent, they are going to master it. The tasks of teaching English for Specific Purposes must be formulated from the very beginning. In the universities programs these tasks are very humble: to teach students ESP, i.e. as an actual means of communication among specialists of different countries, meaning both – oral and written kinds of communication. In other words, ESP is oriented towards mastering skills for professional communication.

The structure and content of language curricula, when modern languages were first introduced into universities, were much influenced by the need to achieve academic respectability. And still, it is the most frequent concept of teaching ESP in universities. Language curricula is therefore dominated by the systematic study of grammar, the regular carrying out of translation exercises into and out of language, the close study of set literary and science texts, the broad study of philological studies of the language.

Another difficulty while teaching ESP at university level is that the first-year students have different language background. From our point of view, the best way out in such situation is a modular type of English course curricula structure, but this is not quite acceptable in our universities because this type of curricula demands great reconstructions in a university programs on the whole. What we can really do is to introduce diagnostic tests followed by an introductory English course if there is a need for students.

The goal of the diagnostic test is to check students’ knowledge in English and to see if students are ready to take on a Basic Course of ESP. The objects of test are lexical, grammatical and reading skills. Usually the test is based on the 400 most frequent words of school vocabulary / lexis inherent in the Basic Learner’s Course, about 15 school grammatical items and 2 texts. The results of the test will show whether a student entering the university is ready to take on the Basic Course of ESP or not. As the result, the diagnostic test shows if there is a need in an introductory course. The introductory course should be devised as a transition course from the general English school course to the university course in ESP. The goal of the course is to review key language features taught at school as well as to form and develop reading and speaking skills of the English for Specific Purposes course. So that is one more teaching problem in ESP at university level.

Another important aspect to be taken into consideration is distinguishing between passive, aimed at recognition (reading, comprehension) and active, aimed at production (speaking, writing) forms of language use. The distinction is essential because these two forms require different means and methods of teaching and – most importantly – different teaching materials

Teaching methods must be learner oriented. In other words, ESP is concerned, first and foremost, with satisfying the real needs of the students and not with revealing the knowledge of the teacher. The intensive and efficient teaching of grammar, vocabulary, translation, etc. must be scientifically grounded and concentrate only on those items which students actually need for the purposes specified at the beginning of the university course.

The primary goal of the ESP course is to teach professional communicative competence that is the ability to communicate in English according to the situation, purpose and specific roles of the participants. The ESP course builds on and extends the foundations for accurate communication. It extends the learner’s grammatical, lexical and functional skills.

Another problem of teaching ESP is vocabulary from the general and professional points of view. Vocabulary plays a key role in teaching foreign languages in general and in professional course in particular. ESP teaching implies teaching the vocabulary of a special text. However, there are no easy points as far as living human languages concerned. Indeed, the vocabulary of a special text consists of three strata, three layers: general words, scientific words and terms. Basic general words must have been learnt before the University. Terms are the gist, the essence of the specialty and are usually better known by students than by teachers. The emphasis, consequently, is on the scientific vocabulary which is, as it were, the skeleton of every special text. However, the general vocabulary is never taught properly at school and has to be acquired at the University level, especially now that the demand for so-called colloquial language has become so great since the prospects of direct, live contracts with foreigners have become so real. This is one more problem to think about.

A very important point in ESP course is the actual words to be studied, the topics to be discussed and learnt, the thematic choice of language to be activated.

The next component of ESP course is Basic Grammar. Grammar is seen as an important component of communicative competence. The Basic grammar for the ESP course must be developed on the basis of statistical research and be represented by most frequent communicative grammatical structures and units which are approached functionally rather than traditionally/ morphologically.

Another urgent problem is a good grammar book. Most textbooks repeat the same definitions which are colourless and difficult to understand because they are “universal”, i.e. written regardless of the nationality of the learner. Grammar books must take into account on the one hand the peculiarities of the ESP in question, and, on the other, the characteristic features of the grammar of the student’s mother tongue.

Another problem concerned teaching ESP is connected with the teaching material arrangement.

The teaching material which may be recommended for developing active skills

is a modeled text that is a text which, by method of analysis through synthesis, is shaped into such a perfect, pure, standard form that it can be safely reproduced by a foreign learner.

And the last aspect – psychological. Learning a foreign language, like no other

subject, requires a special psychological approach, the atmosphere of relaxation, trust even love and faith.

To make good progress, a student has to practice various language activities, related to reception, production, interaction each of these types of activity being possible in oral or written form, or both.

In our point of view, the language learning process at university should be more

focused on the public sphere in the first and second semesters, and on the educational and vocational spheres in the third and forth semesters, because these are related to the future specialists’ needs. If the students are given the opportunity to study ESP for the third year at university, we believe that this time should be devoted not just to learning a foreign language but also they may choose some special subjects in the language.

Making up a conclusion, we may say that there is a great need in making a full

English for Specific Purposes course covering the part of professional communication that has not been

considered yet carefully, in selecting language and speech patterns, in constructing teaching English for Specific Purposes complex based on the modern methods of teaching a foreign language to students of technical specialties at university level.