JALT Hokkaido Journal

Ian Munby

British Club

 

薬学部学生のための短期ESPコース計画

現在、日本において英語母国語話者が教える専門教育レベルの英語は、EGP（日常的目的のための英語）であり、スピーキングの向上に焦点が当てられ、初等レベルの教科書が用いられている。しかし小学校での英語の授業の導入と科学分野における英語力への要求により、大学レベルでのEGPは将来、EAP（学 問的目的のための英語）へと推移していくだろう。この展開はコース計画を担う教師にとって、新たな興味深い、しかし困難な挑戦となるであろう。この論文で は北海道大学薬学部３年生の短期科学英語コースの立案方法が、考古学から動物学に至る同様の専門学部に応用できる手法を用いて述べられている。

                                               

At present, most tertiary level English courses taught by NES (Native English Speaker) teachers in Japan are EGP (English for General Purposes) usually focusing on the development of oral fluency, using elementary level textbooks. However, with the introduction of English programs in elementary schools, and the growing demand for English skills in careers in scientific research, for example, it is likely that there will be more EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses at university level in the future.  This will create new, interesting, but tough challenges for the teachers, particularly in their role as course designers. This paper describes the design process of a short science English course for third year undergraduate students at the Department of Pharmaceutical Science, Hokkaido University, using a set of procedures which can be applied to the development of similar subject-specific courses quite literally from Archeology to Zoology.

 

Introduction

 

The Department of Pharmaceutical Science at Hokkaido University offers a Science English course for its third year undergraduate students for one semester annually with a total of fifteen weekly ninety-minute sessions for one class of about eighty students.   Teaching duties are shared equally, over three consecutive five-lesson blocks, between three teachers, two of whom are non-native professors of the Department of Pharmaceutical Science with specialized knowledge and native-speaker-like English skills, and myself, a native English speaking teacher of English, with no specialized scientific background. The main goal of the course is to equip students with the necessary English language skills to pursue careers in scientific research. 

 

This is, by definition, a discipline-specific EAP (English for Academic Purposes) course and a number of features of ESP are apparent in an overview of the course. These features concern 1) attention to participant’s particular interests and needs, 2) focus on a particular type of English, and 3) the teaching of content as well as language or language skills. The following is a description of the 10 steps, or procedures, for designing the syllabus and materials for my five-lesson block.

 

Step 1.  Conduct NA  (Needs Analysis) 

 

NA involves synthesizing data and impressions from both TSA (Target Situation Analysis) and PSA (Present Situation Analysis). The target situation is where the students need to be, or to be moving towards, by the end of the course.  An interview with the course director revealed four requirements. First, English skills for reading and writing research papers, especially at the graduate (Master of Science) and PhD level, and second, English for communicating with scientists around the world were both described as being “absolutely necessary”. Third, both productive (presenting) and receptive (listening to presentations) language skills were considered important for effective participation at international conferences. Finally, advanced English skills were deemed essential for working in scientific research both inside and outside Japan.  In fact, the course director’s “hidden intention” was to point students towards such careers.

 

PSA concerns the present or actual competence of the participants perceived by course sponsors, teachers, and students themselves and the capabilities and limitations of the situation. To this end, a questionnaire covering career expectations, level of English, and language and course content aspirations was completed by 82 students in pair interviews on the first day of the course, which allowed me eleven weeks to collect relevant texts and design materials before the beginning of my teaching block.   

 

It should be pointed out that the English level of students on this course is in the intermediate range. Regarding particular language skills, and student aspirations in this area, listening and speaking were rated as top priorities. The results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Skills priorities

What aspects of your English ability would you like to improve?

Priority ratings. 1^st. priority = 6 points , second =5, down to sixth priority = 1 point

 

Skill  or aspect	Total points
Listening	383		Reading	266
Speaking	383		Writing	231
Vocabulary	304		Grammar	137

 

More important, and less predictable, than the above was topic preference since this would determine the theme base. Results from the previous year’s NA, where students had responded to the open question: “What kind of topics are you interested in studying about in this course?” had produced such a wide variety of areas of interest that it was very difficult to make reliable decisions concerning course content. To get around this problem, for this year’s questionnaire, I decided to assemble a menu of nine possible topic areas. The results are shown in Table 2.

 

Table 2.  Topic preference

Which of the following topics would you be interested in studying in this course?  Check the boxes.

 

Topic	Total checked		Famous drugs	29
Gene therapy	37		GM Food	17
Deadly diseases	35		The Environment	15
Cancer research	32		Animal testing	12
Cloning	31		Famous scientists	8

 

Step 2.  Establish course objectives

 

Course objectives include development of the following:

1.      Improve listening skills in EAP contexts through listening to lectures by the teacher and recordings of native speakers.

2.   Enhance interactive (speaking and listening) skills through discussion tasks.

3.   Develop presentation skills through individual and group presentations.

4.   Develop writing skills through two written tasks.

5.   Expand science-related vocabulary knowledge.

6.   Improve motivation through confidence-building and enjoyable learning activities.

7.   Develop student autonomy through allowing students opportunities to choose topics  

       which interest them and research them outside the classroom.

 

Step 3.  Decide the type of syllabus

 

White (1988:46) identifies three potential bases for a course syllabus: content, skill, and method. The syllabus for this course was the result of a blend of these elements. The content syllabus introduces information related to pharmaceutical science in the chosen topic areas. The skill base includes both receptive and productive language skills, primarily oral, with an additional focus on the acquisition of learning skills, for example, via research about a drug for a written and spoken report. The method base could be described as both procedural, with an emphasis on task-based activities, and also process-based, with ample opportunities for learners to make choices, thereby fostering a learner-centered environment. While content is clearly important in this kind of ESP course, given the need to practice language skills and perform tasks in “target-like” contexts, this syllabus reflects the “Type B” tradition, where the focus is on learning processes (White,1988:94).

 

Organizing a course in such a way represents an alternative to, or rejection of, traditional “Type A” syllabuses which, in the words of Long and Crookes (1992), are based on “linguistic elements such as word, structure, notion, or function” (p. 27). This rejection was borne of both widely felt dissatisfaction with traditional, often structural or behaviourist approaches, such as PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production), and developments in SLA (Second Language Acquisition) theory which suggested that the learner’s developing interlanguage system responded to its own syllabus and was therefore largely immune to pre-taught language forms (Skehan, 1996).  

 

The task-based approach led to the development of a new teaching methodology, TBLL (Task-Based Language Learning), pioneered by Willis and Willis (1988), which prioritizes “lifelike” task fulfillment over the presentation and production of pre-selected target forms and creates optimal conditions for the promotion of fluency over accuracy. Similarly, in an ESP context, Hyland and Hyland’s task-based syllabus “Go for Gold” (1992) emphasizes comprehending, producing, and interacting, the key elements underpinning the objectives set for this course.

 

Step 4.  Collect topic-related texts.

 

The next step is to assemble a bank of text on the selected topics from relevant ELT textbooks and, more importantly, from a variety of authentic sources such as magazine and newspaper articles, science TV documentary videos, and the Internet. This bank is used to inform lecture content and to identify both key issues for discussion and key vocabulary. Great care was taken to select information on both the most recent and important breakthroughs in pharmaceutical and medical science, such as targeted therapy in cancer treatment, and on the most recent legal developments in cloning. 

 

Step 5.   Sequence the topics

 

The most popular topic areas were sequenced in the following order: famous drugs, cancer research, cloning, and gene therapy, with one lesson on each, since information concerning scientific concepts covered in each unit pre-supposed knowledge introduced in the preceding one. For example, regarding the lecture listening tasks in each unit or lesson, topic knowledge about the drug trial system introduced in the first lesson was thought to be important for the second lesson which also deals with trials. 

 

Step 6.    Design lecture listening task sheets.

 

 Murphy (1996) states that “there is no alternative as rich in possibilities for EAP learners as their regular course instructor being able to deliver a series of thematically connected lectures live in the classroom” (p. 110). Accordingly, the live lecture seemed to be the most appropriate way to develop the students’ listening skills and content knowledge in this course. Similarly, Parkinson (2000) argues the case for exposing EAP science students to the scientific genre in order to develop scientific literacy.  For this reason, lecture listening tasks were designed in the four topic areas: Famous Drugs, Cancer Research, Cloning, and Gene Therapy. The lectures were delivered at normal speed, with authentic features such as hesitation, reformulation, and repetition, reflecting target situation conditions. This practice is thought to be advantageous for listening skills development (Field, 1998). The task for the listener is to extract information from the stream of speech, while circling or writing words or numbers on their task sheets, encouraging the development of the skill of ignoring irrelevant information (Buck, 1994:158). 

 

Table 3    Example of part of a lecture-listening task sheet for lesson 3 (Cloning)

 

HISTORY OF CLONING

a.    The first cloned mammal was of a sheep named   POLLY   MOLLY   DOLLY

b.    She was cloned ____ years ago by a team of scientists from   

SCOTLAND    ENGLAND   THE USA

The success of the experiment occurred after ____ tries and was kept a secret for ____ months.

Similarly, the first IVF baby, Louise Brown took ____ attempts.

 

Step  7.      Design speaking tasks in each topic area

 

The theory that “verbal interaction is of crucial importance to language learning” (Ellis, 1994) is now universally accepted, thus seven tasks requiring interaction between students were included in this course (p.244). The tasks mostly involve knowledge and opinion exchange. The latter take the form of prompts which invite discussion on key issues identified in Step 4. The aim is to develop speaking skills and spoken fluency through sustained practice and task repetition with new partners. They also serve another function: to aid comprehension in lecture and recorded discussion listening tasks by activating the learner’s background knowledge and raising levels of motivation in pre-listening stage. Speaking tasks were given to students one week in advance to allow planning time.

 

Table 4    Example of part of a speaking task for lesson 3 (Cloning)

 

Interview your partner and take notes.  Then repeat with a new partner.

	PARTNER 1	PARTNER 2
At what stage does a human being’s life begin?
Would you like to volunteer to be cloned?
Who would you clone if human cloning becomes possible?
Would you use genetic testing to look at your own  future health risks?

 

Step  8     Record native speakers doing the same tasks.

 

Further listening comprehension practice was provided by playing recordings of native speakers doing the same tasks the students had performed. The recordings are authentic, or non-scripted, and include, as pointed out by Taylor (1991), “false starts, back-tracking, ... softeners, fillers and over-lapping turns…” which “…represent a uniquely appropriate source of listening material”  (p.76). The methodology is based on the TBLL model employed in Willis and Willis’ Cobuild English Course(1988), where learners “observe how native speakers do the same thing”  (p.iv). This lesson structure has the additional benefit of requiring the learners to produce original, creative responses to discussion task questions without prior exposure to the ideas and language of the native speakers.

 

Table 5  Example of part of  a listening task

 

Listen and circle the answer(s) you hear.

 

1.  At what stage does a human being’s life begin?      

            At conception       At birth

 

2. Would you like to volunteer to be cloned?      

            Yes         Probably not         Not at all

 

3. Who would you clone if human cloning becomes possible?  

            Nobody       A relative      I don’t know

 

4.  Would you use genetic testing to look at your own future health risks?  

            Yes        Probably not       Not at all

 

Step  9.    Build vocabulary banks.

 

To assist listening comprehension, lists of key words were given to the students in the preceding week’s lesson and studied in preparation for a test at the beginning of each lesson, where definitions of ten words were read aloud to the class.

Table 6  Example of part of a vocabulary list

 

banned     clone      cloning advocate     defective       deformed     duplicate  embryo       embryonic stem cells        ethics            ethical         ethicist          euthanized        funding     fuse  genetic material    guinea pig        hybrid cell         immortal  ……

 

Step 10.  Integrate into the above individual and group project work

 

The final component of the course materials are produced by the students themselves in the form of project work. In lesson 1, Famous Drugs, students are required to research a famous drug of their choice. In lesson 4, Gene Therapy and The Future of New Drugs, students invent or design a new drug and produce both a verbal report in class to their peers, and a written report for the teacher for each task. In addition, lesson 5 is devoted to group oral presentations on science-related topics selected by the students. 

 

The problem of organizing and assessing group presentations for 82 students in one ninety-minute session was solved by adopting a system of “rotating presentation groups” (Tomei, 2001). This requires each of eighteen groups of 4 to 5 students in three separate zones to present three times to three different audiences, thereby maximizing output and opportunities for interaction, and to assess the performances of three different groups.

 

Evaluation

 

 Results from a questionnaire issued in the final class indicated that the course was generally well-received. With regard to course content, the majority of participants rated the lessons in the “medium to very useful” bracket.  The lectures were also well-received, as were, to a lesser extent, recordings of native speakers, and the speaking tasks themselves. Regarding skills development, the majority of students reported progress in listening, speaking and writing, a pleasant surprise in view of the shortness of the course.

 

In contrast, while the system of using rotating presentation groups was generally viewed positively, only a quarter of the class thought that PA (Peer Assessment) of their performance was fair. Unfortunately, the only apparent alternative way to give 82 individual scores to students in 18 presenting groups in one ninety-minute session would be to record performances on video and assess them later, a practical impossibility.

 

Conclusion

 

Although this experience began with an invitation to teach, I would recommend that interested EAP teachers, particularly those with specialist subject knowledge, approach university departments and propose new discipline-specific courses. It is my impression that the departments themselves are often unaware of the potential of these courses, particularly for students in their third year, and of the existence of teachers with the skills and motivation to develop them. Even in college-level EGP courses, a “mild” subject-specific approach, based on needs analysis, may raise levels of motivation among learners and promote more effective learning.

 

References

 

Buck, G. (1994). The appropriacy of psychometric measurement models for testing second language listening comprehension. Language Testing, 11, 145-70.

Ellis, R. (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Field, J. (1998). Skills and strategies: towards a new methodology for listening. ELT Journal, 52, 110-118.

Holst, M and R. Evans. (2000). Medical English: An ESP Application.  JALT Hokkaido 2000 Proceedings, 33-39.

Hyland, K. and F. Hyland. (1992). Go for gold: Integrating process and product in ESP.  English for Specific Purposes, 11, 225-242.

Long, M. and G. Crookes. (1992). Three approaches to task-based syllabus design.  TESOL Quarterly, 26, 27-56

Murphy, J. (1996). Integrating listening and reading instruction in EAP programs. English for Specific Purposes, 15, 105-120

 Parkinson, J. (2000). Acquiring scientific literacy through content and genre: a theme-based language course for science students.  English for Specific Purposes, 19, 369-387.

Skehan, P. (1996). Second language acquisition research and task-based instruction. In J. Willis & D. Willis (Eds.) Challenge and change in language teaching, pp.17-30. Heinemann: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, L. (1991). Review of Collins Cobuild English course. ELT Journal, 45, 74-76.

Tomei, J. (2001). Project work in the university classroom:  a guide for the non-native teacher. JALT Hokkaido Chapter 2001 Proceedings, 73-79.

White, R. (1988). The ELT curriculum.  Design, innovation and management. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Willis, J & Willis, D. (1988). Collins Cobuild English course 1 Teachers book. London: Collins.