Learner autonomy and awareness through distance collaborative group work in English for Academic Purposes

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40956-6_13Learner autonomy is considered to be both an important skill and attitude of learners, which involves responsibility for and control of the learning process. A key notion in autonomy is interdependence, developed through collaboration and which results in heightened awareness. Precisely, this concept lies at the core of technology applications, which facilitate interaction and collaboration at a distance. With a growing number of online ESP situations, more attention needs to be paid to virtual classrooms and the development of learner autonomy through collaboration. In the context of a distance EAP course, this chapter examines how students carry out a collaborative language awareness task, considering that peer interaction can be an appropriate setting to develop language awareness, whether in face-to-face or online situations. Based on the framework of 'community of inquiry' (Garrison et al. 2000), this study looks at how group members interact through forum posts and wiki edits, showing how students initiate, manage and carry out the task, together with the social, cognitive, and meta-cognitive processes that are generated. Given the nature of the task, creating a language learning activity, special attention is paid to students’ focus on and discussion of topics related to language and learning. From these observations we can derive implications for online language teaching and materials design.Peer ReviewedPreprin

A Qualitative Approach to Educational Research: Language Courses in English Studies

This paper reports on a qualitative study focusing on the role of language awareness in university language courses that form part of English Studies (ES). Language constitutes the subject matter of students’ discipline and the ES degree is the initial training for future language teachers and other language-related professionals. Therefore, the models and views of language presented at university will influence graduates’ future professional practice. This study focuses on how language awareness is approached in language classes and on lecturers’ and students’ views of language and learning. This article will discuss how a qualitative methodology was used to find out about participants’ practices and views on language and learning, through immersion in a university language course over a term. Using a descriptive-interpretive paradigm, data were gathered from classroom observations and interviews, and analysed through the combination of ethnography and discourse analysis. This paper presents the methodological underpinnings of this research, decisions on the selection of data, interaction with participants, researcher’s stance, and warranting. Through the understanding of participants’ practices and views, this study provides a picture of how language awareness is approached in a university language course

Integrating different types of competences in a technical communication course within the new European framework

In the new European framework, university teaching emphasizes student learning and the development of different competences. This paper presents an ESP course for engineering students which integrates competences related to language and communication with competences related to the social, ethical, and humanistic dimension of the engineer. The course “Academic communication in English: science, technology, and society” aims at developing students’ communication skills in English alongside their critical thinking skills, through the exploration and discussion of topics related to science, technology, and society. This paper presents the rationale for the design and teaching of the course, which draws on several strands: the integration of content and language, EAP teaching, and the development of critical thinking skills. It is organized in the form of thematic units, each focusing on a topic related to the impact of technology on society. Each topic thus serves as a point of departure for dealing with content and academic communication in English. This paper tries to show how an EAP course can be related to the interests of engineering students, helping them develop their capacity for academic communication as well as for reflecting on issues related to science, technology, and society.Postprint (published version

ESP, EMI and interculturality: How internationalised are university curricula in Catalonia?

This study analyses Internationalisation at Home (IaH) courses across a wide range of bachelor’s degrees, from humanities to hard sciences, in public universities in Catalonia, as an in-depth analysis of a South European context. IaH courses selected for analysis included courses (i) on international topics, (ii) taught in English and focusing on content (English-medium Instruction, EMI) and (iii) focusing on language, i.e. English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Results point to a high presence of international content courses, especially in humanities and social sciences, followed by EMI courses, although quantitatively scarce and mainly found in engineering. ESP courses are the least present despite their potential to prepare students for EMI. Reasons that may account for this IaH picture are presented. All in all, it seems that current policies leave language and intercultural competence in the hands of content lecturers, who may not have explicit language and intercultural learning outcomes in mind while it appears that the potential role of ESP as an internationalisation driver may be neglected. This paper thus argues for giving visibility to ESP courses and lecturers in their role for the promotion of curricular internationalisation.Postprint (published version

The role of content and language in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) at university: Challenges and implications for ESP

In a context characterized by the increasing presence of CLIL programs in universities with a tradition of ESP courses, we analyze the case of a university in Catalonia (Spain) with regard to the position of CLIL and ESP. As CLIL programs are promoted to improve students' language proficiency in English, we explore the importance of language learning in these programs and the implications derived for ESP. Data were obtained from institutional documentation, class observation, and lecturer and student views on CLIL expressed in focus groups and a questionnaire. Findings show imprecise guidelines for CLIL implementation. Although we can observe an institutional shift from ESP to CLIL, the latter courses do not generally include language support. Lecturer and student perspectives provide useful insights for action that can be taken by ESP course designers to adapt courses to make them more relevant to students' discipline-related needs. Faced with these findings, we propose engaging in collaboration with content lecturers to develop graduates' proficiency in English. This collaboration can take place both through the integration of language in content courses and through the integration of content in ESP courses to make them more relevant to disciplines' communicative needs. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Postprint (published version

Erasmus students using English as a "lingua franca": does study abroad in a non-English-speaking country improve L2 English?

There is a lack of research on the impact of study abroad (SA) on the development of L2 English when students study in non-anglophone countries. The aim of the present study is to fill this gap by examining 39 Catalan/Spanish students who, as part of an Erasmus exchange, spent a term at universities in non-English-speaking European countries. In this context, English was used as the vehicular language for their studies and in their daily extracurricular activities when interacting with other students. Our research focuses the impact of this specific type of SA on students’ L2 English proficiency, and in particular their writing skills. Before and after the SA, students completed the Quick Oxford Placement Test (a general measure of L2 proficiency) and also drafted a short written paragraph in English. Their writing was analysed for syntactic complexity, lexical complexity and subordination. The results show that participants improved significantly after their SA on two out of the four measures: general L2 proficiency and lexical complexity. Though threshold levels of general proficiency have been posited for students’ ability to benefit linguistically from SA, in this case, L2 proficiency at the outset of the SA experience was found not to influence the development of writing skills, except on the measure of subordination. Implications are drawn for further research and pedagogic practice in developing English as a lingua franca skills in a European context.Peer ReviewedPreprin

EMI Lecturer Training Programmes and Academic Literacies: A Critical Insight from ESP

As EMI involves the integration of content and discipline-specific communication, this study focuses on intersections between ESP and EMI, especially on how ESP can contribute to improving discipline-specific communication in EMI from the perspective of content lecturers’ needs. Specifically, this study provides an overview of EMI training programmes offered by universities in Catalonia (Spain), and explores the written genres assigned by content lecturers in EMI subjects. EMI training programmes are classified according to their orientation: communication, pedagogy, and multilingualism/multiculturalism (Fortanet-Gómez, 2010; Kurtán, 2003). Our analysis pays special attention to the extent to which there is an ESP focus in such training and is complemented by a questionnaire to a group of EMI lecturers on their reported use/teaching of disciplinary genres, following Nesi and Gardner (2012). Findings shed light on practices and expectations related to discipline-specific genre pedagogy, an area that is at the crossroads between EMI and ESP. By examining lecturer perspectives on EMI alongside institutional policies and training programmes, this study can help lecturers cope with the challenges of EMI, and contribute to further developing EMI-ESP lecturer collaboration.Kako nastava stručnih predmeta na engleskom jeziku (EMI) podrazumeva integrisanje stručnog gradiva i komunikacije karakteristične za određenu naučnu disciplinu, ova studija se bavi dodirnim tačkama između engleskog jezika struke i nauke (ESP) i EMI, posebno načinima na koje ESP može doprineti poboljšanju disciplinarne komunikacije u kontekstu EMI sa aspekta potreba nastavnika stručnih predmeta. Konkretnije, studija pruža pregled programa obuke za EMI na univerzitetima u Kataloniji (Španija) i istražuje pisane žanrove koje predaju nastavnici stručnih predmeta u nastavi na engleskom jeziku. Programi obuke klasifikovani su na osnovu opredeljenja u pogledu: komunikacije, pedagoškog pristupa i multilingvizma/multikulturalnosti (Fortanet-Gómez, 2010; Kurtán, 2003). U analizi posebnu pažnju obraćamo na stepen zastupljenosti ESP u takvim obukama i predstavljamo upitnik podeljen grupi nastavnika koji nastavu stručnih predmeta drže na engleskom jeziku i njihove odgovore o tome koje disciplinarne žanrove koriste/predaju u takvoj nastavi, po uzoru na Nesi i Gardner (2012). Rezultati otkrivaju praksu i očekivanja vezane za nastavu disciplinarno specifičnih žanrova, oblast koja se nalazi na raskršću EMI i ESP. Pošto se bavi stavovima nastavnika o EMI i institucionalnim politikama i programima obuke, ova studija može biti od pomoći nastavnicima da lakše izađu na kraj s problemima u EMI, kao i doprineti daljem razvoju saradnje između EMI i ESP nastavnika.This study was supported by research grant FFI2016-76383-P (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad)

Linking engineering students in Spain and technical writing students in the US as co-authors: The challenges and outcomes of subject-matter experts and language specialists collaborating internationally

In a first-of-its-kind international collaboration, technical writing classes in Spain and the US matched engineering students with international technical writing students to coauthor procedural instructions. These were then tested for usability by students in Finland and the US, and subsequently translated and localized by students in Belgium, France, and Italy. The coauthors faced challenges in gaining expertise, communicating clearly in a lingua franca, handling differing cultures, testing for usability, and managing differing semester schedules and time zones. Insights from these experiences yield recommendations for instructors who wish to replicate such collaborations.Postprint (published version

Engineering students' perceptions of the role of ESP curses in internationalized universities

Recently there has been a trend towards English-medium instruction (EMI) with increasing numbers of programs taught in English (Wächter & Maiworm, 2014). At the same time, there has been a long tradition of ESP courses aiming at preparing students for effective academic and professional communication. In an increasingly internationalized context, it is necessary to reappraise current ESP courses in order to find out the extent to which they are adapted to the ever-changing needs of engineering graduates in a glob- alized world. Within this context, this study looks at the impact of ESP courses on uni- versity students of engineering in two European universities (Spain and Austria). Specifically, our research was based in three campuses: two campuses from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain), UPC-Vilanova (n 1/4 52) and UPC-Barcelona (n 1/4 26), and a third campus at FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences (FHJ) in Austria (n 1/4 17). This research set out to track participants’ perceptions of how ESP courses prepared them for academic communication in general and EMI in particular (N 1/4 95). Data stem mainly from surveys administered both at the start and at the end of an ESP course. Students were asked about their perceived initial level of proficiency, their expectations, and their learning objectives (first survey, T1) as well as their perceived development in the different skills, the degree of fulfilment of their initial learning objectives, and their evaluation of the ESP course as preparation for international academic and professional communication (second survey, T2). These data were complemented with qualitative diary entries from students (n 1/4 7) who reflected on their learning at different stages of their ESP course. Results point to overall satisfaction with ESP courses and greater awareness of the nature of specialized communication and yield deeper insights into students’ strategies and areas where ESP can contribute to better student preparation and empowerment.Postprint (author's final draft