Conference programme

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

DAY 1 – 27 OCTOBER 2017, FRIDAY

Time: 9:00-10:30 Keynote Speaker

The Role and Identity of English Language Teachers

Prof Somali Gupta, C.L.C. Govt. Arts & Commerce  College, Dhamdha, Dist.Durg. (Chhattisgarh) India

This talk will deal with the challenges faced by English language teachers who teach English as second language. The role of an English language teacher is highly demanding and complex. Every decade, various theorists develop new theories of teaching English as a second language. While each theory has its own merits and limitations, they all focus on the students. The teacher who are expected to play the multiple roles of facilitator, instructor, guide, often give in to the role pressure. How do the language teachers, who deal with high expectations of their institutions, peers, parents and the students they teach, integrate their role as a teacher into their “ Self’ and maintain their effectiveness? In the chain of learning, how does the teacher position herself? The talk will delve into these aspects and more.


10:30-11:00

COFFEE BREAK

   

Time: 11:00-11:30

Assessment Issues in ESP-based College English Program Reform in China's Tertiary Educational Institutions: A Case Study of CUFE

Wenjie Shi, Central University of Finance and Economics, China

Over the past decade, a new wave of College English Program reform has generated widespread concern, featured by Content-Based Instruction (CBI) and English for Specific Purpose (ESP) to meet extended and diversified learning needs and expectations from university students who are enrolled in top or key universities in China. To address the issues, The Central University of Finance and Economics launched the project ‘ESP-based College English Program for Universities of Finance and Economics’. The project designed a new College English Program that are based students learning needs, teachers teaching expertise, and prospective employers’ expectations to the graduates’ language proficiency, which is expected to meet the learners’ diversified needs and give more specific business and finance related instruction. However, the new program created fresh issues in assessment and outcome of the ESP-based courses.

Time: 11:30-12:00

The Role of Motivation in Teaching Speaking in ESP: A Case Study of a Lebanese Private University

Wassim AL Bekai, University of Balamand, Lebanon

In learning any language, speaking plays an essential part in language acquisition. This has been a problematic issue as language teachers aspire to improve students’ communicative skills through the use of different techniques such as role play, discussions, simulations among others or by improving students’ vocabulary and pronunciation. The study sheds light on the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in teaching speaking in an English speaking class where English is taught as a foreign language for specific purposes such as business English, aviation English training among others. The importance of developing speaking skills in these specific situations has a great impact on students’ academic, social and professional development. Our study will investigate The American University of Beirut (AUB) 200 diverse participants from different majors and who are divided between sophomore, junior and senior students on the one hand and the students’ major and gender on the other. The reason behind this division is to test both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and which group is more motivated. SPSS statistical analyses show a variation in the results between the two groups and this is due to a variety of factors.

Time: 12:00-12:30

Navigating the Digital Media Labyrinth to increase ESP lecturers’ credibility

Dimitros Boglou, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus

As an English for Specific Purpose (ESP) instructor in a tertiary education environment, you often face scrutiny concerning your academic capabilities and credibility by students and/or fellow academics when assigned to teach their specialized content field. The permeation of a plethora of digital media tools and platforms in educational institutions around the world have allowed ESP instructors to research and discover various aspects and information about the specialized content they are assigned to teach. Furthermore, by harnessing this specialized content related information from various digital media outlets, ESP instructors can adequately prepare themselves and deliver the course by using various digital media tools and platforms, which in return could contribute to the ESP instructors’ credibility. However, the utilization of random or inadequate e-tools in an ESP course does not necessarily translate into success or the establishment of credibility and acceptance of an ESP instructor as an equal amongst the other academics of the department or in the eyes of the students. Furthermore, the utilization of unpopular e-tools or the lack of knowledge how to properly utilize certain digital tools in an ESP classroom could add to the scrutiny that ESP lecturers already face in their universities and hurt their credibility even more. Problematized by this development, I chose to combine various digital media tools in my advanced ESP finance course as I was challenged to teach an ESP course to senior Finance students. This paper reflects my personal experience in navigating through the digital media labyrinth in order to find the appropriate digital media tools to design, prepare and teach the course.


12:30-1:30

LUNCH

Time: 1:30-2:00

An MA Student of Law Writing for International Publication --A case study from the behavioral ecological perspective

Chunyan Shao, Shandong University/Harvard University, China/USA

Studies on writing for publication dates as far back as the contrastive study of news report and academic writing by Goodell (1918). So far, studies have revealed the textual features of the papers, the cognitive-psychological processes of the authors, and the social, political or cultural influence on the publication. However, there are few detailed studies on the influence of the supervisor-student relationship on the publication of the students in international journals.

Situated with the argument that in the global context, academia can be regarded as an ecological system where mature writer secures the habitat for novice writers, and drawing upon the rationale that the supervisor’s perception of the supervisor-student relationship influences the extent to which assistance is offered by him/her in the student’s publication, this study describes how the novice writer’s writing for publication process is influenced by her supervisor’s understanding of the supervisor-student relationship.

Time: 2:00-2:30

The “Swiss cheese” in English for Specific Purposes

Vanya Katsarska, National Military University, Bulgaria

Recently the world has become more interconnected economically, socially, politically and culturally. No doubt high competence in English language is a priority for a lot of professionals all over the world because intercultural encounters occur between individuals from different lingua-cultural backgrounds. However, communication is often impaired by language barriers on one hand and cultural differences on the other hand. Taking the “Swiss cheese” model as a base, the presenter would like to focus on the three defensive layers/slices of “Swiss cheese” in ESP: (1) linguistic knowledge and skills, (2) background knowledge and (3) culture. These are the basic factors of foreign language communication success or failure. Examples will be given what can happen when in communication all the defensive layers are breached. University English language departments need to provide students with both language proficiency and intercultural awareness making good use of students’ specific professional background knowledge. This notion should be reflected in the curriculum and it should have an impact on what standards are set, how these standards are thought about and assessed. The presentation will highlight the necessity of focusing not only on linguistic proficiency but also on intercultural communicative competence in the teaching of English for specific purposes.

Time: 2:30-3:00

Effects of Translation Criticism on Developing Students’ Translation Competence

Jia Hongxia, Information, Science and Technology University, China

Some achievements in developing translation competence have been introduced by Christina Schaffner and Beverly Adab in Developing Translation Competence, which has been accepted for some universities in China as a guide for building and assessing the student translation competence leading to a Bachelor’s degree or a Diploma. The book focuses on three essentials for developing translation competence, that is, the definition of the translation competence, introduction to building translation competence and assessing translation competence. Worth mentioning, in terms of building translation competence, the ability of “good written skills” is introduced together with “high ability in both the source and target languages and the ability to translate well” for gaining accreditation as a translator from the Institute of Linguist’s examination for the Diploma in England. This is the same as building students’ ability of translation criticism to boost the development of their translation competence. The present writing is to discuss about the effects of translation criticism on developing translation competence. To cope with the demand from society for highly qualified translators, course series of translation have been offered to English majors in BISTU (Beijing Information Science and Technology University), such as Translation and Practice, Introducing Translation Studies, Translation Practice and Thesis Writing, covering translation theory, translation practice, as well as academic writing on translation. With writings concerning translation criticism, building and assessing translation competence of the student from the perspectives of language, culture and text becomes more efficient. So, a systematic research is needed on why and how translation criticism boosts the development of students’ translation competence.


3:00-3:30

COFFEE BREAK

Time: 3:30-4:00

Using English-Chinese parallel corpus in teaching translation: A study on translator’s notes

Ting-hui Wen, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan

In English-Chinese translation, adding notes is quite common especially when there is no equivalence between the two languages. Translator’s notes can be inserted to explain certain people, places, historical and social phenomena, allusions and puns. Sometimes translators even add their own interpretations in the translated texts. Students of translation might find it a challenge regarding when and whether to add a note. The current research investigates translator’s notes using the Parallel Corpus of Chinese Mystery Fiction (PCCM). The PCCM includes eight titles of translated published in Taiwan from the year 2000 to 2005 and their source texts. Seven out of the eight titles of translated mystery fiction included in the PCCM have translator’s notes in the forms of footnotes, endnotes or between parentheses in the texts.

Time: 4:00-430

Revisiting tourism text genres presenting writing difficulties to students: designing materials through a semi-automatic corpus

M. Angeles Escobar & Iria da Cunha, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain

The writing of tourism texts is common practice for professionals and students need to learn how to improve their writing skills in this field. This is not always successful since it entails a number of difficulties related to different text genres, whose particular features are not often met. Recently, an array of textual genres has been discussed, cfr. Cabre (1999), and Calvi and Mapelli (2011). Following this list, da Cunha, Montané and Coll (2016) present a study of Spanish tourism text genres and argue that there are robust differences in the perception of their writing difficulties. Furthermore, they show that professionals are also aware of the fact that some genres are more frequent than others. These authors, finally, conclude that five textual genres present a major problem: tourism articles for the general reader, travel blogs, reports, tourist accommodation regulations and business plans. It seems, therefore, necessary to make a fine-grained linguistic analysis to help students write as accurately as possible. In this context, our research goal in this paper is twofold: to give an account of a number of linguistic characteristics, concerning three particular domains: text, lexicon and discourse; and, to design a semi-automatic corpus for English tourism texts. By doing so, we also attempt to engage students in the learning process increasing their attention and focus, through a meaningful learning experience. In particular, we design a specialized database to provide a comprehensive description of the five genres mentioned above. In particular, we analyse the three domains that should be included in such a database addressing: i) text prototypes and contents; ii) idiomatic expressions, specific terms and their definitions; and, iii) discourse segments and linking words. Finally, we compile the immediate results in a semi-automatic corpus.

Time: 4:30-5:00

Exploring ESP Teachers’ Role and their professional development in China

Changyuan Liu, Harbin Institute of Technology, China

English for Specific Purposes represents clear trend in the reform of college English teaching in China. College English teachers in China should shift their role of teaching English for general purpose to the role of teaching English for specific purpose. Therefore, the research on ESP teachers’ role and teachers’ professional development in China is of special and great significance. This paper proposes that ESP teachers are of foremost and crucial importance in ESP teaching as they are the practitioners in ESP teaching. Based on the previous researches and teaching practice in ESP education in China, this paper attempts to explore ESP teachers’ professional profile and the role teachers play in ESP teaching. Some guidelines and strategies are proposed for the long-term professional development of ESP teachers, aiming to promote and improve the quality of ESP teaching in China.

Time: 5:00-5:30

ESP-Current Controversies and perspectives

Nadežda Stojkovi

, University of Nis, Serbia, Nalan Kenny, Kings Leadership Academy, UK

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has been a rising trend in the area of English Language Teaching for a few decades now. It is by its essence and aim domain language and content oriented, learner centered, and job market focused. These alone make it at present highly needed among the adult population of learners in worldwide terms speaking. ESP also subsumes extensive research for the purpose of material design, as well as adjusting teaching methodology (this often involving innovation) to the target group of learners, which are prestigious characteristics in themselves of any form of language teaching. Although as such ESP now has had quite a significant history, it has not yet been fully established as a separate linguistic discipline, moreover it is often disputed. At the same time, there is a notable occurrence of establishing new academic degree programs, still rare admittedly, teacher trainings, publications, special interest groups, all dealing with ESP, indicating that a major shift is accumulating towards learning a language with domain performativity orientation.

DAY 2 – 28 OCTOBER 2017, SATURDAY

Time: 9:00-9:30

Cross-cultural biblical and historical precedental units awareness in teaching ESP in the sphere of political sciences and mass media

Svetlana Rubtsova, St Petersburg State University - Russia 

The importance of introducing cross-cultural awareness in teaching ESP is generally acknowledged. This article focuses on biblical and historical allusions awareness for students of political sciences and mass media of the additional educational program “Translation in the sphere of professional communication” at St Petersburg State University at the tertiary level of education. One of the courses in its syllabus “Intercultural communication from the perspective of translation” is aimed at facilitating intercultural competence in the field of allusions and metaphors from myths and legends, from the Bible, world history and literature, etc. Biblical and historical precedental units can be an example of dissimilarity between the cultural background of English and Russian speakers, with the level of their awareness of biblical and historical metaphors and allusions being far from equal. The misinterpreting of biblical expressions and historical catchphrases in political speeches and mass media reports, used more than often in a modified form, leads to misunderstanding and miscommunication. Thus, it is desirable for learners of ESP to acquire profound knowledge of this layer of lexis, mainly by comparing the precedental units in question, their equivalents, if any, and the usage.

Time: 9:30-10:00

Corpora as tools for learning collocations in the field of land surveying

Ewelina Kwiatek, Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland

Researchers and students for whom English is not the first language and who want to publish their papers in English often struggle not only to find appropriate terminology but also to identify collocations in the second language. Scientific and technical translation may have a simpler syntax and a relatively small number (if any) of literary devices, but it is still far from direct translation. English learners find it really challenging to guess which words go together and which contexts they match. English corpora, both the ones which are already available such as the British National Corpus and those which may be created by the user and analyzed with concordance tools such as AntConc, may serve as a great tool in finding collocations. The knowledge of query syntax is crucial in this process as it facilitates and accelerates searches. This research uses the scientific article on remote sensing written in Polish by the Polish researchers as a case study. Its aim is to identify collocations in Polish and find their English equivalents in BNCweb (CQP edition), a small corpus of remote sensing texts built by the author of this paper and other resources such as collocation dictionaries or English dictionaries. The results of this analysis enable to evaluate the usefulness of corpora for finding and learning collocations in the field of land surveying.

Time: 10:00-10:30

Selected laguage learning activities aimed at developing social competences of nursing in Esp classes

Monika Pociask, Anna Stefanowicz-Kocoł, The State Higher Vocational School, Poland

The article presents the rationale for the need to introduce a dedicated set of activities aimed at developing social competences of nurses during ESP classes as well as introduces concrete proposals of activities that address a number of aspects of the complex issue. The idea for this improvement was formed after studying the book Improving Nursing Practice. Education, Competences, Communication, Quality by A. Sztenberg and T.L. Jasiński. The authors of the book report on the results of a survey which clearly show that nurses do not feel practically prepared for effective patient-oriented communication. Taking into consideration that social competences belong to transversal skills which can be practised in any language, we strongly believe that our task as ESP teachers is to help student nurses practice verbal and non-verbal reactions oriented at improving their social competences in various health care situations. Since most ESP course books for student nurses do not contain information on how to behave or what to do, what to say to respect a person as a patient and a human being, the set of practical exercises suggested in our article addresses the problem of social competences in English for Nursing classrooms.


10:30-11:00

COFFEE BREAK

Time: 11:00-11:30

Teaching Medical Geology in English: Research Articles as a Potential Learning Tool in a University Context

Miriam Pérez-Veneros, University of Salamanca, Spain

Jorge Diego Sánchez, University of Salamanca, Spain

Elena Giménez-Forcada, Geological Survey of Spain, Spain

This paper focuses on the feasibility of the use of research articles in Medical Geology (hence MG) as a potential learning tool for the teaching of English in a university ESP course with a twofold purpose: the teaching of English as it is presented in the scientific realm as well as their use in the implementation of vocabulary and writing skills in English applied to MG. Previous analysis on the use of research articles as a tool to set a series of written and oral tasks for students of Medicine shows that the use of real samples of English language through the use of research articles in different scientific fields (dermatology or rheumatology) fosters students’ communicative performance in academic contexts (Diego, Pérez-Veneros and Elorza 2017). MG, as an emergent field of knowledge, is progressively gaining ground in the scientific sphere in English but its study in university syllabuses has been neglected so far. Hence, this paper aims at contributing to the teaching of English in this new scientific field through the analysis of a series of research articles using corpus-based techniques (Tognini-Bonelli 2001) with a twofold purpose.

Time: 11:30-12:00

Legal Figures in the Writings of English Literature

Yang Xitian, Beijing Institute of Technology,China

British Law serves as the basis for that of all the countries around the world, which is strongly supported with legal elements in the writings of English Literature. One among them is figures and characters in literary works, such as jurist, lawyers and criminals in Great expectations by Charles Dickens. Based on the data collected for figures and characters in English literary works, two types of figures or characters are to be discussed and examined in this writing. One is those who are engaged in law ranging in array of various profession titles. Many characters are something of legal practitioners, such as lawyers from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, legal clerk in Charles Dickens’ novels. Portia, a heroine from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice William is to be discussed. Without formal legal training, but in the act of A Pound of Flesh, she disguises herself as a man, and assumes the role of a lawyer's apprentice whereby she saves the life of Bassanio's friend, Antonio, in court. I still remember her speech about "the quality of mercy". The other t is those who commit crimes, with a collection of the proper none or term for their criminals.

Time: 12:00-12:30

ESP Teachers as pillars of transdisciplinary Cooperation

Ľudmila Hurajová, Gabriela Chmelíková, Slovak University of Technology, Faculty of Materials Science and Technology, Slovakia

“Englishisation” of the world in diverse professional fields brings higher demand on forms of education on all levels in order to assist young generation to be employable. Commanding several foreign languages is a labour market advantage. However, language competence in English as a foreign language, has become „a must” recently including Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). There is a trend to provide international education environment for students at universities as much as possible. Being open to foreign students as well as to lecturers, professors can lead to higher and closer international cooperation which becomes a common feature of business world these days. Our contribution aims at describing the roles of ESP teachers in HEIs focusing on their potential to become the pillars of transdisciplinary cooperation. In terms of internationalisation process of higher education, at first, two main stakeholders and their readiness should be considered: students and teachers. ESP teachers can have impact both on students and teachers´ level of readiness for English learning/teaching environment. The contribution provides some examples how ESP teachers can build transdisciplinary cooperation and recommends some ways how to enhance the position of ESP teachers in HEIs.


12:30-1:30

LUNCH

Time: 1:30-2:00

Material Development for Listening to Financial and Economic News: A Case Study

Huang Jian, School of Foreign Studies Central University of Finance and Economics,

China

The value of material for language learning and teaching is widely recognized and many principles and theories have been put forward for selection of texts and development of tasks. However, few of them are based on and for English listening materials and even fewer for listening materials for specific purpose. So far very limited knowledge is available about how materials should/could be developed for ESP listening instruction and what are the possible challenges and solutions involved in in it. This study attempts to add to the knowledge via a case probe into the material development for a ESP listening course: Listening to Financial and Economic News for English majors. This paper: (1) explores the teacher’s initial rationale behind the material development; (2) analyzes the students’ attitude to and reflection over the materials; (3) proposes a theoretic framework for developing ESP listening materials based on integration of the results of both (1) and (2); (4) clarifies the major challenges for developing ESP listening materials and suggests possible solutions. It is concluded that material development is an art of compromise where the particular context should be consulted and it is hoped that the study can deepen the understanding of ESP listening material and provide a reference for those who are interested in creating quality ESP listening materials.

Time: 2:00-2:30

Designing an ESP Syllabus for Finance Managers of ArcelorMittal Annaba Company.

Fethi GUERID, Naouel ABDELLATIF MAMI Mohamed Lamine Debaghine Setif 2 University, Algeria

The aim of this study is to design a detailed ESP syllabus for finance managers of ArcelorMittal Annaba Company. We believe that designing an ESP syllabus for this research population on the basis of the findings and results of needs analysis will lead to positive and effective results because it will focus on the lacks of this population and it will be motivating for them because it will take into consideration their wants. To carry out this study we have used two research tools; a questionnaire and authentic material analysis. The questionnaire to analyse the needs of the participants concerning their use of English at work and authentic material to analyse the characteristics of specific discourse of the research population. The study has taken place in the period between January 2017 and June 2017. The results of the study have helped in knowing the participants and their domain which is finance and accounting. They have also allowed us to fix the duration of the course, the frequency, the objective, the content of the course and the evaluation tools. We are optimistic that this syllabus will be efficient because we have taken into consideration the lacks, necessities and wants of participants. We have taken them in consideration during the needs analysis process and during the design of the course.

Time: 2:30-3:00

A Report of an EAP Course for Non-English Major Doctoral Students at Harbin Institute of Technology

Song Wang, Harbin Institute of Technology, China

This paper intends to report the course design of an EAP course for non-English major doctoral students at Harbin Institute of Technology, China. The course is set up to satisfy doctoral students’ need for participation in international academic events, with the emphasis on developing students’ ability to deliver an academic oral presentation as well as on developing their intercultural communicative competence, and finally on developing their critical thinking ability. By the end of the course students get to know the skills of an academic oral presentation. As for the assessment, formative evaluation is taken instead of summative evaluation. Besides, a simulated international academic conference is organized each semester to help students practice what they have learned in class and to prepare them for real academic events in the future, which has proven to be a success and for which students are highly motivated.


3:00-3:30

COFFEE BREAK

Time: 3:30-4:00

Genre Based Materials Design for Reading Case Law in English for Academic Legal Purposes

Naveed Ahmad, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Pakistan

The aim of this research project is to figure out the generic features of one of the sub-genres of legal English: legal judgments produced by judges in the superior courts in common law (commonwealth) countries. And subsequently, recommend the designing features of materials with reference to this chosen sub-genre. The generic features will be found by 1) reviewing literature in the field of language and law, and 2) gathering information from “subject specialists” in the field of law: judges, lawyers and law professors. The tool will be interview in this context. Data will be analyzed qualitatively to present the findings. The findings will contribute significantly: In commonwealth countries, the chosen sub-genre occupies a special position in legal settings as judgments produced by the superior courts’ judges become laws. However, due to generic complexity of this genre, the stakeholders (law students, lawyers, law teachers and judges) consider it a difficult genre for newcomers in the field. Designing materials to facilitate the process of learning in the context will have a significant impact. The research will be carried out in Pakistani context, but the findings will be applicable in all the commonwealth countries.

Time: 4:00-4:30

The Use of Lexical Bundles in Korean learner corpus: directing to ESP pedagogy

Junyeon Koo, Seoul National University, South Korea

Lexical Bundles (LBs) have been considered as a marker of proficient language use in academic writings (McCulley, 1985). The current study examines and compares the usage of LBs in a Korean learner corpus (YELC) and in a native corpus (LOCNESS). Four-word LBs in the two corpora were examined in terms of structural patterns and functional ones. AntConc 3.4.1 were used for the analysis.

The results revealed that VP-based was the largest, followed by NP-based, others, and PP-based in YELC, which supports Chen & Baker’s (2010) results. Additionally, the Korean writers mainly employed stance expressions. The Native English student writers displayed the similar results to NNS’ ones in terms of structural patterns but they showed different findings in terms of functional ones. It was distinctive in that only a few discourse organizers and a great number of stance expressions were retrieved from YELC, which is also dissimilar to this study. However, it confirms the earlier findings that the NNS are less likely to use hedges (Adel & Erman, 2012; Chen & Baker, 2010).

Time:4:30-5:00

Towards a Hybrid: Integrating English Language Education with Engineering Education

Mimi Nahariah Azwani Mohamed, Suzilla Jamari, Nurul’Ain Othman, Nor Fadhilah Ahmad Powzi & Nurzaidah Amanina Mazda, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

The constantly changing demands for quality graduates in workplace have raised concerns and challenges for higher learning institutions to develop future workforce that can meet these demands. The need for graduates of higher learning institutions to be effective communicators in their respective fields has triggered moves towards transforming the English language curriculum into one which can develop graduates’ competencies in English language and communication abilities within their respective fields. Thus, English language teaching needs to go beyond the borders and be situated within a specific context, requiring designers to design curriculum

which fulfils the expectations in a particular industry. Apart from that, English language educators need to transform their teaching to suit the needs of learners within a specific discipline. There has been significant moves towards integrating English language teaching and learning with other disciplines such as engineering so that learning becomes more relevant and practical. In Malaysia, many English language educators teaching in higher learning institutions have been trained to teach English as a second language. In many cases, these educators are also the ones who design the English language curriculum and courses. With the moves towards an integrated English language curriculum and teaching, questions arise in relation to the ways in which English language teaching is positioned, the English language curriculum and courses are designed, and English language teaching is conducted. This study discusses the ways in which English language educators at one technical university in Malaysia position English language teaching, design the English language curriculum and courses, and teach these courses to engineering students. The results contribute to knowledge and understanding of the challenges English language educators face in translating ESP in the curriculum, courses and teaching and learning.

Time: 5:00-5:30

CLOSING

Convergence of ESP with other disciplines