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Some problems of teaching English at technical university
К содержанию номера журнала: Вестник КАСУ №2 - 2010
Автор: Жаксыбаева Ж. Ж.
The subject of the present
paper is an overview of main problems connected with teaching English at technical
university. 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 exchanging information and experience.
The situation with foreign
language teaching in Kazakhstan Universities is in some ways different from
that of many European countries. In Kazakhstan, students of all specialties
have foreign languages on the curricula as an obligatory subject for one or two
years out of the average four years of the full course. Thus, our students not
only want to learn foreign languages, but also have to learn them because the
students of any specialties must learn a foreign language as a part of their
syllabus and as a necessary part of the state test at the second year of their
studies.
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. Many people get bitterly disappointed and lose interest in foreign language
studies because they were not duly informed that it is not possible in the
limited period of learning 2-4 hours for week for 1-2 years – to master a foreign
language, to acquire all the various skills: reading special literature,
newspapers, fiction, writing scientific papers, understanding the lyrics of
songs, everyday speech, etc.
The tasks of teaching English
must be formulated from the very beginning. In the universities programs these
tasks are very humble: to teach students English, i.e. as an actual means of
communication among specialists of different countries, meaning both – oral and
written kinds of communication. In other words, teaching English at technical
university is oriented towards mastering skills for professional communication.
As H. Radford points out the
structure and content of language curricula, when modern languages were first
introduced into universities, were much influenced by the need to achieve
academic rEnglishectability (Radford, 1985). And still, it is the most frequent
concept of teaching ENGLISH in universities. But the ability to speak the
language is not emphasized as much as the ability to write, and, above all, the
ability to read the language. 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 (Maddock, 1994).
Another difficulty while
teaching English at technical university is that the first-year students have
different language background. From my 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 English. The objects of test are lexical, grammatical skills.
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 (S. Ter-Minasova, 1994).
Teaching methods must be
learner oriented. In other words, English 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. This is an important statement which in
theory is universally accepted but in practice is hardly ever followed.
The primary goal of the
teaching technical English 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 course builds on
and extends the foundations for accurate communication. It extends the
learner’s grammatical, lexical and functional skills (Homutova, 1999).
Professional communication may
be taught by making up patterns of communicative process. It is based on a
situation, as the whole communicative process is actually a continues dynamic
series of changing situations (Zykova, 1999).
Communicative situation is a
dynamic system of interacting objective and subjective factors, involving a
person in communication and defining his speech behavior within a single
communication act. There is a great need in making up typical communicative
situations, covering the part of the professional communication domain that has
not been considered yet, in selecting language and speech patterns to provide
communication in typical situations, in constructing a complex of exercise base
on the methods of teaching foreign language. While arranging teaching material
it is necessary to pay special attention to the common situations and the way
to define their list. In our case these situations are included mainly in the
professional communication domain. In general oral communication domain is an
aggregate of communicative situations being characterized by similar speech
behavior, relations between the communicants and conditions. Professional
communication domain is a complex of communicative situations, covering
professional activities. This sphere comes into contact with the service
domain, sociocultural domain and administrative and cultural domain, as a real
communication of specialists cannot be limited by the discussion of purely
professional problems. However, professional domain prevails.
Another problem of teaching
English 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. Teaching English
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, specialty oriented English now is
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 English 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 technical
English course is Basic Grammar. Grammar is seen as an important component of
communicative competence. The Basic grammar for the English 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 (sentence structure, predicate, subject, attribute, etc.) rather
than traditionally/ morphologically. However, very often grammar is taught par
excellence, in its full splendor, regardless of the actual aims of teaching, of
the actual skills to be acquired. The difference between seeing a difficult
grammatical form in the text and actually using it is often disregarded and
different grammar points are taught with equal enthusiasm. Teaching
communication for special purposes must be based on the previous linguistic
analysis of special texts resulting in recommendations for teaching those
grammar forms and structures which are the most characteristic of these texts.
Another urgent problem is a good grammar book. Most textbooks repeat the same
definitions which are colorless 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 English
in question, and, on the other, the characteristic features of the grammar of
the student’s mother tongue. For example, what is difficult about the English
language for Russians may be easy for Italians and vice versa.
Another problem concerned
teaching English is connected with the teaching material arrangement. According
to S. Ter-Minasova, the teaching material for developing passive skills is a
topical informative text supplied with the learner’s commentary. 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. Indeed, learning a strange language, a strange world picture,
strange mentality is a difficult psychological barrier for many learners.
Teaching foreign languages to university students of non-philological specialties
is complicated by the fact that for these students a foreign language is not a
part of the special, professional education, which may result in a lack of
motivation. Another point to remember while teaching English nowadays is that
it is necessary to take into account changes in the nature of students’ need
and the context in which they live, study and work. In any case the syllabus of
English must improve the students’ skills in all the aspects of language
activities. The goal is the development of professional qualifications, for
practical training abroad, for work in joint ventures, etc. 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. These language activities are connected with
very diverse fields, but, considering language learning at university, may be
classified into four main spheres: the public sphere, the personal sphere, the
educational sphere, and the occupational sphere.
Each act of language use should
be set in the context of a particular situation within one of the spheres in
which a person’s social life is organized. The number of possible spheres is
indeterminate. It may be useful to distinguish between:
- the personal sphere centered
on home life, family and friends;
- the public sphere in which
the person concerned acts as a member of the general public engaged in
transactions of various kinds;
- the education sphere in which
the person is involved in organized learning within an educational institution;
- the vocational sphere which
will be concerned with the person’s job or profession.
In my point of view, the
language learning process at university should be more focused on the public
sphere in the first semester and on the educational and vocational spheres in
the second and/or third semesters, because these are related to the future
specialists’ needs. In these spheres the situations which arise should be
described in terms of:
- the locations in which they
occur;
- the institutions, the
structure and the procedures which can normally be controlled;
- the persons involved in the
relations with the learner;
- the events that take place;
- the actions of persons
involved.
There are some possible
situational categories, classified according to the spheres which should be
taken into consideration in teaching technical English at the university. They
are shown in Table 1 – Table 3.
Communicative activities
(productive: speaking, writing; receptive: listening, reading; interactive:
oral interaction, written interaction), spoken and written texts should promote
the learner’s motivation; learning should stimulate their interest and
sensitivity to the world around them and to their future profession. Thus,
developing a course in English for technical students must result in a course
that covers the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening with
particular emphasis on reading and writing. The technical English course must
be built on and extend the foundations for accurate communication. It must
extend the learner’s grammatical, lexical and functional skills and cover the
public, educational and occupational skills. As a model it should include Basic
Learner’s Vocabulary, Basic Grammar, Diagnostic Test, Introductory course,
Achievement Tests to Introductory Course, Student’s Book, Teacher’s Manual,
Tests to Student’s Book, Workbook, Sci-Tech Text Reader, Audio-Visual Aids and
Final Tests.
Reading and Translating Strategies, most frequent logical and
semantic connectives of different types of texts. The active reading skills
will be needed and used in technical English courses in transition form from
the “learning to learn” stage to the “reading to learn” stage, and later the
learners will use them in their career and life to produce accurate,
thoughtful, and informed English responses to what they have read.
REFERENCES
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Герцена и др. – СПб., 1999. – С. 186-189.
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неязыковом вузе: cб. науч. тр. / Юж.-Урал. гос. ун-т; под ред. Т.Н. Хомутовой. – Челябинск, 1999. – С. 87-102.
3.
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4. Ter-Minasova,
S. Teaching English at University Level / Ter-Minasova S. // Терминасова, С.Г. Английский язык: пособие для поступающ.
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К содержанию номера журнала: Вестник КАСУ №2 - 2010
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