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Lexden papers 1: Essays on teaching english for specific purposes
The ESP Journal Vol. 1. No. 1 Fall 1980
Reviews
LEXDEN PAPERS 1: ESSAYS ON TEACHING ENGLlSH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. By the Staff of the Colchester English Study Centre. Colchester, Essex:
Lexden Centre (Oxford) Ltd., 1979. Pp. 70. Review& by Waldemar Marton The present volume is a miscellaneous collection of papers dealing with various practical aspects of organizing and teaching ESP courses. -Among the titles in the collection we can find such as “What Do We Understand by ESP?” by John Webb, “The Value of De-Centralized Learning in an ESP Programme” by Gillian White, “An Example of Organization and Evaluation of Micro-Teaching” by Jonathan Seath, “Private Study Facilities in CESC” by Kate Merriweather and Carol Mm-r-ells, “The CESC Scientific and Technical Project” by John Holmes, and others. Most of the papers can be characterized as practically oriented and focusing on techniques of teaching and on various organizational parameters rather than on theoretical insights and generalizations. The purpose of the collection is simply to share experiences accumulated at the Colchester English ‘Study Centre with the hope that at least some of them may be extrapolated to other ESP teaching situations. It is with this rather modest purpose in view that the present volume has to be evaluated. Yet, at the same time, some of the writers seem to imply that their experiences may also shed some light on wider theoretical issues and contribute to the emergence of a central approach to teaching ESP. Since my interests lie predominantly in the theoretical domain, in this review I will address myself primarily to those selected statements and observations which have a theoretical potential. First of all, I would like to take issue with John Webb’s definition of the “ESP approach” contained in his contribution entitled “What Do We Understand by ESP?” Webb sees the distinctive feature of the ultimate ESP approach as one of total flexibility so that, in his own words, “. . . all educational, methodological and administrative choices can be determined by the requirements of the course.” (p. 5) I would argue that viewing many important pedagogical and administrative decisions as dependent on the requirements, or, in other words, on the goals of the course is necessary for the development of any reasonable method of language teaching. Yet, on the other hand, every method of language teaching should contain some fairly stable elements in the form of axioms or assumptions providing the justification of the prescribed procedures, so that a set of such assumptions may be shared by many different methods. These assumptions are derived from language teaching theories and may be regarded as generalizations of accumulated experience and knowledge, without which it would be impossible to discuss language teaching within anything resembling a scientific framework. Accordingly, the “ultimate ESP approach”, being something like the theory of teaching ESP, should contain statements related, for example, to such issues as the ontological status of ESP or the question whether teaching ESP involves primarily teaching language, or concepts, or both. If we relativize the concept of 57
58
The ESP Journal
method or approach to the point at which the only suggestion we are willing to give the teacher is to tell him to be flexible and depend on feedback, any generalization of pedagogical experiences, or even publishing a collection like the one being reviewed, seems to be futile and purposeless. Some interesting statements and observations can also be found in the two contributions by John Holmes, one entitled “Perceiving Aims” and the other “The CESC Scientific and Technical Project”. In these articles, which are also the most “theoretical” in the volume, the author raises some of the issues fundamental to the working out of a theory of teaching ESP. One of these issues is the question whether ESP courses should be primarily devoted to the teaching of scientific concepts along with the language used to handle them or only to the teaching of new names for well known concepts. As it has turned out, there has been a demand at the CESC for both types of courses. In the case of teaching ESP to the student who is naive in the subject matter, John Holmes rightly suggests that the linear development of concepts should be emphasized within the given topic area and that this development should be as explicit and straightforward as possible. Yet this solution begs another fundamental question, namely, who should best teach such courses, a specialist science teacher or the average arts-trained EFL teacher. The author opts for the EFL teacher because, as he sensibly notes, the bulk of all the work involved on such courses is fundamentally language work. Furthermore, this scientifically naive teacher can find the necessary technical help in the nature of the materials themselves, which should be practically selfexplanatory if they are built in a step-by-step manner and gradually develop and exemplify concepts. On the whole, Holmes is of the opinioni that the ESP teacher does not have to be, and does not even have to pretend to be, a specialist in the scientific subject matter of the. course, but that he should possess sufficient understanding of the scientific background to be able to monitor the language content of the discussions and other class activities. Moreover, and this I consider to be a vary important point, the ESP teacher should know the discourse structure of the given specialist field and should give the students ample opportunity to learn how to interpret and produce cohesive and coherent scientific texts. On the other hand, Holmes thinks that for the preparation of the materials and the development of the syllabus a “dual specialist” who can look at the problems from the point of view of both scientist and language teacher is necessary. This specialist must also be available during the course in order to give help and advice when it is needed. Holmes’ suggestions, stemming both from the theoretical consideration of the relation between scientific concepts and the language used to handle them and from generalizable teaching experience, are very important in that they refer to a fundamental, worldwide controversy in ESP. This controversy can be expressed in the questions what qualifications should the ESP teacher possess and, consequently, how should teacher training for ESP be organized. John Holmes’ enlightened remarks go a long way towards answering this question and can be considered an important contribution to the development of an ESP-teaching theory. Another paper with interesting implications for the still controversial question of how much linguistic explanation is useful in the teaching and learning of language skills is the one by Joan Allwright entitled “En Explicit Approach to the
Review of Leden Papen 1
59
Teaching of Intonation”. The author and her colleagues, on the basis of their experiences in teaching English intonation to nonnative teachers of this language from all parts of the world, have concluded that an approach based on a conscious, explicit and systematic treatment of British intonation is certainly the most effective. In justification of this approach the author states that if overseas students ‘6. . . go home with a good practical command of intonation but with no theoretical framework to back it up, they find it difficult to maintain their proficiency away from native-speaker contact. If, on the other hand, they have a descriptive framework as well as a good practical command, they have a reference point that is far more useful than fading memories of intonation patterns acquired through mimicry alone.” (p. 38) This observation, although undocumented statistically, certainly does lend strong support to the proponents of the cognitive approach to language teaching, who maintain that explicit teaching of linguistic rules, although not sufficient by itself, is very beneficial for the practical mastery of the skills. The point made by cognitivists is that a clear, conscious perception of the critical components of the skill is often necessary for mastering it, and that providing the learner with an explicit conceptual framework related to the skill prevents its fading away in conditions of less intensive practice. Allwright’s observations also provide a counterargument to the claims of those theorists who think that intensive exposure to the language is the only crucial factor in language learning and that all explicit teaching of rules is of not much avail. My discussion has treated only selected statements and observations of some theoretical interest. This does not mean, however, that I found the other topics dealt with in the collection uninteresting. On the contrary, I want to emphasize that all the articles in the volume provide interesting and practical information about teaching techniques and organizational solutions. For example, in one of the papers Gillian White presents a case for decentralizing learning in an ESP programme and transferring the center of learning activity from the classroom to a location which more closely resembles the students’ place of work. In another article Susan Sheer-in describes some techniques of exploiting an off-air video (video tape) in ESP courses. The paper by Kenneth Elvin convincingly argues for introducing the Past Simple before the Present Simple in a sequence of grammar-teaching activities. Jonathan Seath in his paper demonstrates some empirically tested techniques of peer-group micro-teaching in teacher-training courses. I am sure, then, that Laden P@ws 1 is a very useful publication which will be appreciated by ESP teachers all over the world. Still, in conclusion I cannot refrain from noting that if the collection contained at least one paper summing up the accumulated experiences and presenting them in some theoretical framework, its value would be even higher and its appeal wider. Dr. Waldemar Marton is Head of the TEFL Department at the Institute of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, and is currently Associate Visiting Professor at the English Language Institute, The American University, Washington, D.C. He has published three books and many articles, most of them in Polish, on various theoretical aspects of foreign language teaching.
Reviews
LEXDEN PAPERS 1: ESSAYS ON TEACHING ENGLlSH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. By the Staff of the Colchester English Study Centre. Colchester, Essex:
Lexden Centre (Oxford) Ltd., 1979. Pp. 70. Review& by Waldemar Marton The present volume is a miscellaneous collection of papers dealing with various practical aspects of organizing and teaching ESP courses. -Among the titles in the collection we can find such as “What Do We Understand by ESP?” by John Webb, “The Value of De-Centralized Learning in an ESP Programme” by Gillian White, “An Example of Organization and Evaluation of Micro-Teaching” by Jonathan Seath, “Private Study Facilities in CESC” by Kate Merriweather and Carol Mm-r-ells, “The CESC Scientific and Technical Project” by John Holmes, and others. Most of the papers can be characterized as practically oriented and focusing on techniques of teaching and on various organizational parameters rather than on theoretical insights and generalizations. The purpose of the collection is simply to share experiences accumulated at the Colchester English ‘Study Centre with the hope that at least some of them may be extrapolated to other ESP teaching situations. It is with this rather modest purpose in view that the present volume has to be evaluated. Yet, at the same time, some of the writers seem to imply that their experiences may also shed some light on wider theoretical issues and contribute to the emergence of a central approach to teaching ESP. Since my interests lie predominantly in the theoretical domain, in this review I will address myself primarily to those selected statements and observations which have a theoretical potential. First of all, I would like to take issue with John Webb’s definition of the “ESP approach” contained in his contribution entitled “What Do We Understand by ESP?” Webb sees the distinctive feature of the ultimate ESP approach as one of total flexibility so that, in his own words, “. . . all educational, methodological and administrative choices can be determined by the requirements of the course.” (p. 5) I would argue that viewing many important pedagogical and administrative decisions as dependent on the requirements, or, in other words, on the goals of the course is necessary for the development of any reasonable method of language teaching. Yet, on the other hand, every method of language teaching should contain some fairly stable elements in the form of axioms or assumptions providing the justification of the prescribed procedures, so that a set of such assumptions may be shared by many different methods. These assumptions are derived from language teaching theories and may be regarded as generalizations of accumulated experience and knowledge, without which it would be impossible to discuss language teaching within anything resembling a scientific framework. Accordingly, the “ultimate ESP approach”, being something like the theory of teaching ESP, should contain statements related, for example, to such issues as the ontological status of ESP or the question whether teaching ESP involves primarily teaching language, or concepts, or both. If we relativize the concept of 57
58
The ESP Journal
method or approach to the point at which the only suggestion we are willing to give the teacher is to tell him to be flexible and depend on feedback, any generalization of pedagogical experiences, or even publishing a collection like the one being reviewed, seems to be futile and purposeless. Some interesting statements and observations can also be found in the two contributions by John Holmes, one entitled “Perceiving Aims” and the other “The CESC Scientific and Technical Project”. In these articles, which are also the most “theoretical” in the volume, the author raises some of the issues fundamental to the working out of a theory of teaching ESP. One of these issues is the question whether ESP courses should be primarily devoted to the teaching of scientific concepts along with the language used to handle them or only to the teaching of new names for well known concepts. As it has turned out, there has been a demand at the CESC for both types of courses. In the case of teaching ESP to the student who is naive in the subject matter, John Holmes rightly suggests that the linear development of concepts should be emphasized within the given topic area and that this development should be as explicit and straightforward as possible. Yet this solution begs another fundamental question, namely, who should best teach such courses, a specialist science teacher or the average arts-trained EFL teacher. The author opts for the EFL teacher because, as he sensibly notes, the bulk of all the work involved on such courses is fundamentally language work. Furthermore, this scientifically naive teacher can find the necessary technical help in the nature of the materials themselves, which should be practically selfexplanatory if they are built in a step-by-step manner and gradually develop and exemplify concepts. On the whole, Holmes is of the opinioni that the ESP teacher does not have to be, and does not even have to pretend to be, a specialist in the scientific subject matter of the. course, but that he should possess sufficient understanding of the scientific background to be able to monitor the language content of the discussions and other class activities. Moreover, and this I consider to be a vary important point, the ESP teacher should know the discourse structure of the given specialist field and should give the students ample opportunity to learn how to interpret and produce cohesive and coherent scientific texts. On the other hand, Holmes thinks that for the preparation of the materials and the development of the syllabus a “dual specialist” who can look at the problems from the point of view of both scientist and language teacher is necessary. This specialist must also be available during the course in order to give help and advice when it is needed. Holmes’ suggestions, stemming both from the theoretical consideration of the relation between scientific concepts and the language used to handle them and from generalizable teaching experience, are very important in that they refer to a fundamental, worldwide controversy in ESP. This controversy can be expressed in the questions what qualifications should the ESP teacher possess and, consequently, how should teacher training for ESP be organized. John Holmes’ enlightened remarks go a long way towards answering this question and can be considered an important contribution to the development of an ESP-teaching theory. Another paper with interesting implications for the still controversial question of how much linguistic explanation is useful in the teaching and learning of language skills is the one by Joan Allwright entitled “En Explicit Approach to the
Review of Leden Papen 1
59
Teaching of Intonation”. The author and her colleagues, on the basis of their experiences in teaching English intonation to nonnative teachers of this language from all parts of the world, have concluded that an approach based on a conscious, explicit and systematic treatment of British intonation is certainly the most effective. In justification of this approach the author states that if overseas students ‘6. . . go home with a good practical command of intonation but with no theoretical framework to back it up, they find it difficult to maintain their proficiency away from native-speaker contact. If, on the other hand, they have a descriptive framework as well as a good practical command, they have a reference point that is far more useful than fading memories of intonation patterns acquired through mimicry alone.” (p. 38) This observation, although undocumented statistically, certainly does lend strong support to the proponents of the cognitive approach to language teaching, who maintain that explicit teaching of linguistic rules, although not sufficient by itself, is very beneficial for the practical mastery of the skills. The point made by cognitivists is that a clear, conscious perception of the critical components of the skill is often necessary for mastering it, and that providing the learner with an explicit conceptual framework related to the skill prevents its fading away in conditions of less intensive practice. Allwright’s observations also provide a counterargument to the claims of those theorists who think that intensive exposure to the language is the only crucial factor in language learning and that all explicit teaching of rules is of not much avail. My discussion has treated only selected statements and observations of some theoretical interest. This does not mean, however, that I found the other topics dealt with in the collection uninteresting. On the contrary, I want to emphasize that all the articles in the volume provide interesting and practical information about teaching techniques and organizational solutions. For example, in one of the papers Gillian White presents a case for decentralizing learning in an ESP programme and transferring the center of learning activity from the classroom to a location which more closely resembles the students’ place of work. In another article Susan Sheer-in describes some techniques of exploiting an off-air video (video tape) in ESP courses. The paper by Kenneth Elvin convincingly argues for introducing the Past Simple before the Present Simple in a sequence of grammar-teaching activities. Jonathan Seath in his paper demonstrates some empirically tested techniques of peer-group micro-teaching in teacher-training courses. I am sure, then, that Laden P@ws 1 is a very useful publication which will be appreciated by ESP teachers all over the world. Still, in conclusion I cannot refrain from noting that if the collection contained at least one paper summing up the accumulated experiences and presenting them in some theoretical framework, its value would be even higher and its appeal wider. Dr. Waldemar Marton is Head of the TEFL Department at the Institute of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, and is currently Associate Visiting Professor at the English Language Institute, The American University, Washington, D.C. He has published three books and many articles, most of them in Polish, on various theoretical aspects of foreign language teaching.