Options, Practices and Possibilities of EAP and ESP Practitioners, 2020
Both teaching and learning a foreign language requires hard work and a great deal of effort on bo... more Both teaching and learning a foreign language requires hard work and a great deal of effort on both sides. The traditional chalk-and-talk approach to teaching and reviewing English grammar and vocabulary may be supplemented by other activities like (online) puzzles, crosswords, quizzes, games, experiments, etc., which can be done as whole class work, group work, pair work and individual work. The aim of the paper is to present the use of such activities in ESP/EAP classes (in our case, Technical English classes), which, when selected carefully and appropriately, contribute to the acquisition of the content being taught and increase the effectiveness of language learning and teaching. Although there are both advantages and shortcomings of using such activities in (ESP/EAP) teaching, generally speaking, they support teachers’ efforts to increase student motivation and engagement in class. These activities can be used at any stage of our lessons, be it to warm up the class before the lesson begins, to give students a break or to keep them engaged or interested during the lesson, or as a recap exercise at the end of class. Since it is absolutely important for the students to be familiar with the activity they are about to do, the teacher must explain the rules in detail, write instructions on the board or even simulate the activity. Although there is an abundance of activities that can be used in ESP/EAP classes, in this paper we present only a few that can be used to both revise and recycle vocabulary and grammar studied in previous classes. It is important to add that most of these activities, though sometimes (slightly) modified, can be used in ESP/EAP classes of any type and at any level. In this paper, we illustrate the following: experiments, Word Association, Collocation Pelmanism, Taboo, Plickers, Kahoot, Socrative, and QR codes, and mention some of their variations as well.
Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication... more Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication. However, students generally perceive grammar instruction as a necessary evil at best. They usually believe their messages will be understood even if a sentence is incorrect. On the other hand, vocabulary learning is the fundamental step in any language learning. Acquiring new vocabulary is of paramount importance in English for Specific Purposes as it is directed towards specific needs of students’ particular specialties. The aim of this research was two-fold. We were interested in students’ preferences for learning grammar and vocabulary and their performance in exams. For the purpose of the research, 230 students studying at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek, Croatia were surveyed. The results showed that the students believe acquiring new technical vocabulary is more important and useful than studying grammar. In the second par...
Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication... more Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication. However, students generally perceive grammar instruction as a necessary evil at best. They usually believe their messages will be understood even if a sentence is incorrect. On the other hand, vocabulary learning is the fundamental step in any language learning. Acquiring new vocabulary is of paramount importance in English for Specific Purposes as it is directed towards specific needs of students’ particular specialties. The aim of this research was two-fold. We were interested in students’ preferences for learning grammar and vocabulary and their performance in exams. For the purpose of the research, 230 students studying at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek, Croatia were surveyed. The results showed that the students believe acquiring new technical vocabulary is more important and useful than studying grammar. In the second par...
Fierce competitiveness of admission to highly respected universities and companies has created th... more Fierce competitiveness of admission to highly respected universities and companies has created the need to evaluate and profile successful candidates. Traditional evaluation of candidates involving their grades is no longer satisfactory and does not provide a clear image of a candidate. There should be a way to profile a candidate and predict one's success ranging from a success in a course to a working position. Our research aimed to study potential correlations of students' writings and their revision exam grades acquired in English for Specific Purposes courses. 203 university engineering students submitted their introductory essays for the computational (LIWC) and statistical (SPSS) analysis. The results showed that the higher achievers used more scholarly vocabulary and verbose sentences. They were task-oriented thinking in a categorical way. On the other hand, the lower achievers used less complex sentences and were other-oriented, demonstrating a verbal dynamic style. However, stereotypical behaviour was only exhibited by the male students, i.e. due to societal pressure, the female students put more effort into their task completion, compensated
Writing is one of the most challenging skills in second language learning requiring intensive, lo... more Writing is one of the most challenging skills in second language learning requiring intensive, long and specialized instruction. Errors inevitably occur affecting both form and communication. This paper aims at studying typical errors students make in their final paper abstracts written in English. The research corpus consists of 110 final paper abstracts written by the professional study program undergraduate students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Osijek. The final paper abstracts were selected randomly and downloaded from the official repository. The abstracts were analyzed using Markin 3.1 software speeding up the process of error classification and providing overall descriptive statistics of the errors. The errors were classified into 21 categories. The conducted analysis shows that students frequently omit or misuse articles due to their non-existence in their native language. Furthermore, the analysis shows the omission or misuse of pronouns frequently resulting in using vague references. In addition, word choice is rather poor and word order often incorrect. Also, there is a lack of agreement between a subject and a verb that is occasionally used in both incorrect form and tense. Finally, contrary to our expectations, misspelling and quotation errors, otherwise underlined and suggested for correction by Microsoft Office Word students use to write their final papers, were recorded at a very high rate.
The paper deals with the results of different methods used for teaching technical English vocabul... more The paper deals with the results of different methods used for teaching technical English vocabulary, as well as with students' perception and motivation with respect to the methods employed in the teaching process. The research included first year students specializing in Automation, Power Engineering and Informatics at the Professional Study Program, Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Osijek, Croatia. The students were divided into two groups, a control and an experimental group. The traditional white/blackboard method was employed in the control group, while the experimental group used an experiment combined with various interactive materials as a vocabulary learning method. Prior to the teaching process, all students were tested on the target vocabulary in order to identify students' prior knowledge. The same test was conducted after the teaching process for the purpose of detecting any possible variances in the acquisition of the target vocabulary between the control and experimental group. Finally, a short questionnaire survey, aimed at analyzing students' perception and attitude of the respective methods used as language learning tools, as well as possible dissimilarities in students' motivation for learning new vocabulary, was carried out.
Options, Practices and Possibilities of EAP and ESP Practitioners, 2020
Both teaching and learning a foreign language requires hard work and a great deal of effort on bo... more Both teaching and learning a foreign language requires hard work and a great deal of effort on both sides. The traditional chalk-and-talk approach to teaching and reviewing English grammar and vocabulary may be supplemented by other activities like (online) puzzles, crosswords, quizzes, games, experiments, etc., which can be done as whole class work, group work, pair work and individual work. The aim of the paper is to present the use of such activities in ESP/EAP classes (in our case, Technical English classes), which, when selected carefully and appropriately, contribute to the acquisition of the content being taught and increase the effectiveness of language learning and teaching. Although there are both advantages and shortcomings of using such activities in (ESP/EAP) teaching, generally speaking, they support teachers’ efforts to increase student motivation and engagement in class. These activities can be used at any stage of our lessons, be it to warm up the class before the lesson begins, to give students a break or to keep them engaged or interested during the lesson, or as a recap exercise at the end of class. Since it is absolutely important for the students to be familiar with the activity they are about to do, the teacher must explain the rules in detail, write instructions on the board or even simulate the activity. Although there is an abundance of activities that can be used in ESP/EAP classes, in this paper we present only a few that can be used to both revise and recycle vocabulary and grammar studied in previous classes. It is important to add that most of these activities, though sometimes (slightly) modified, can be used in ESP/EAP classes of any type and at any level. In this paper, we illustrate the following: experiments, Word Association, Collocation Pelmanism, Taboo, Plickers, Kahoot, Socrative, and QR codes, and mention some of their variations as well.
Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication... more Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication. However, students generally perceive grammar instruction as a necessary evil at best. They usually believe their messages will be understood even if a sentence is incorrect. On the other hand, vocabulary learning is the fundamental step in any language learning. Acquiring new vocabulary is of paramount importance in English for Specific Purposes as it is directed towards specific needs of students’ particular specialties. The aim of this research was two-fold. We were interested in students’ preferences for learning grammar and vocabulary and their performance in exams. For the purpose of the research, 230 students studying at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek, Croatia were surveyed. The results showed that the students believe acquiring new technical vocabulary is more important and useful than studying grammar. In the second par...
Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication... more Grammar has always been regarded as the necessity in establishing successful formal communication. However, students generally perceive grammar instruction as a necessary evil at best. They usually believe their messages will be understood even if a sentence is incorrect. On the other hand, vocabulary learning is the fundamental step in any language learning. Acquiring new vocabulary is of paramount importance in English for Specific Purposes as it is directed towards specific needs of students’ particular specialties. The aim of this research was two-fold. We were interested in students’ preferences for learning grammar and vocabulary and their performance in exams. For the purpose of the research, 230 students studying at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek, Croatia were surveyed. The results showed that the students believe acquiring new technical vocabulary is more important and useful than studying grammar. In the second par...
Fierce competitiveness of admission to highly respected universities and companies has created th... more Fierce competitiveness of admission to highly respected universities and companies has created the need to evaluate and profile successful candidates. Traditional evaluation of candidates involving their grades is no longer satisfactory and does not provide a clear image of a candidate. There should be a way to profile a candidate and predict one's success ranging from a success in a course to a working position. Our research aimed to study potential correlations of students' writings and their revision exam grades acquired in English for Specific Purposes courses. 203 university engineering students submitted their introductory essays for the computational (LIWC) and statistical (SPSS) analysis. The results showed that the higher achievers used more scholarly vocabulary and verbose sentences. They were task-oriented thinking in a categorical way. On the other hand, the lower achievers used less complex sentences and were other-oriented, demonstrating a verbal dynamic style. However, stereotypical behaviour was only exhibited by the male students, i.e. due to societal pressure, the female students put more effort into their task completion, compensated
Writing is one of the most challenging skills in second language learning requiring intensive, lo... more Writing is one of the most challenging skills in second language learning requiring intensive, long and specialized instruction. Errors inevitably occur affecting both form and communication. This paper aims at studying typical errors students make in their final paper abstracts written in English. The research corpus consists of 110 final paper abstracts written by the professional study program undergraduate students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Osijek. The final paper abstracts were selected randomly and downloaded from the official repository. The abstracts were analyzed using Markin 3.1 software speeding up the process of error classification and providing overall descriptive statistics of the errors. The errors were classified into 21 categories. The conducted analysis shows that students frequently omit or misuse articles due to their non-existence in their native language. Furthermore, the analysis shows the omission or misuse of pronouns frequently resulting in using vague references. In addition, word choice is rather poor and word order often incorrect. Also, there is a lack of agreement between a subject and a verb that is occasionally used in both incorrect form and tense. Finally, contrary to our expectations, misspelling and quotation errors, otherwise underlined and suggested for correction by Microsoft Office Word students use to write their final papers, were recorded at a very high rate.
The paper deals with the results of different methods used for teaching technical English vocabul... more The paper deals with the results of different methods used for teaching technical English vocabulary, as well as with students' perception and motivation with respect to the methods employed in the teaching process. The research included first year students specializing in Automation, Power Engineering and Informatics at the Professional Study Program, Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Osijek, Croatia. The students were divided into two groups, a control and an experimental group. The traditional white/blackboard method was employed in the control group, while the experimental group used an experiment combined with various interactive materials as a vocabulary learning method. Prior to the teaching process, all students were tested on the target vocabulary in order to identify students' prior knowledge. The same test was conducted after the teaching process for the purpose of detecting any possible variances in the acquisition of the target vocabulary between the control and experimental group. Finally, a short questionnaire survey, aimed at analyzing students' perception and attitude of the respective methods used as language learning tools, as well as possible dissimilarities in students' motivation for learning new vocabulary, was carried out.
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