A strategic, process-oriented approach for an ESP reading course in the humanities

ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 A STRATEGIC, PROCESS-ORIENTED APPROACH FOR AN ESP READING COURSE IN THE HUMANITIES Graciela Placci and Ana María Longhini Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto, Río Cuarto, Argentina This paper aims at describing pedagogical materials especially designed for an ESP (English for Specific Purposes) course for undergraduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences (mainly majoring in Education, History, and Geography) at a national public university in Argentina. It expands on the rationale behind the methodology and its practical application. The lessons in the manual seek to transfer to practical application theories based on the latest findings in reading, cognitive psychology and educational psychology. The contribution of the learner's systemic knowledge, exploited in cross-reference with their schematic knowledge, plus the application of metacognitive and monitoring strategies have been our guidelines for the design of the activities. Since our main aim is to facilitate the learners’ interpretation of texts while simultaneously improving their language skills, we base our approach on systemic functional grammar. Each lesson we teach addresses questions aimed at unveiling the ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings of the reading texts that we use as didactic units. Key words: ESP, reading comprehension, strategies, pedagogical materials, autonomy. Estudios de lingüística inglesa aplicada 202 G. Placci and A. M. Longhini ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 1. Introduction For over fifteen years now we have been teaching an ESP (English for Specific Purposes) course for undergraduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences (mainly majoring in Education, History, and Geography) at a national public university in Argentina. This course is a requirement for the students to get their degree. An ESP course is designed to meet specific needs of the learners: its content is related to a particular discipline, occupation or activity; it is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to those activities; it is generally restricted to one language skill, during a limited period of time, and mainly taught to adults in homogeneous classes in terms of work, studies or specialization (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998). The aim of our ESP courses at an Argentine university, as in many other Latin American and European universities, is basically the development of reading skills. Due to the ever increasing educational, academic and professional demands for new knowledge, our students have an urgent need to read –and comprehendupdated material in their areas of study (mainly journals, scientific papers and research articles) which is usually written in English. This requires from the students active and effective reading skills which they do not always possess. And even when their motivation is strong, especially for those students who plan to continue with graduate studies and be a part of academia as teaching assistants or research assistants, they are frequently frustrated by their limitations in accessing materials written in English. At the university level we generally assume that our students have already mastered their reading and learning skills in L1. That is why in our ESP classes we encourage our students to make positive transfer of those L1 skills to their L2 reading to facilitate learning. However, it should not be assumed that, because their L1 reading skills are good, they will always make positive transfer. Students sometimes need to be guided in this process, and even so, they may fail to do it successfully, especially when their linguistic competence in L2 is limited. Our students in ESP courses at the A strategic, process-oriented approach... 203 ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 university usually have a very limited knowledge of English because it is only recently that EFL has been given prominence in the Argentine educational system. Another limitation of ESP courses at the university is that they usually have a very limited instructional load, generally a maximum of 120 hours in the whole program. Thus, in an attempt to compensate for these limitations while having to meet our learners’ need to develop language skills to access the written text, we use an interactive, process-oriented approach to reading comprehension. Because reading is the one skill that best meets our learners’ needs, we believe that the most effective way to use our classtime is to focus on a methodology that helps them learn how to read, i.e., a methodology that focuses on the learners’ processes of comprehension. We believe that the learners’ reading skills can be activated and enhanced through the development of effective reading comprehension strategies that make them independent readers and promote learning autonomy. In this paper we attempt to (a) describe the rationale behind the methodology, (b) demonstrate how this methodology applies in our ESP course and in our course materials, and (c) offer examples of the pedagogical materials we have especially designed for the course. 2. Rationale Educational psychology and constructivist theories focus on how to learn, rather than on what to learn; rather than content and subject matter, the focus is on learning processes that can enhance lifelong learning. Teaching is learner-centered, and the learning process must be meaningful for the learner and have value to his/her life (Williams & Burden, 1997). These theories suggest that learners can “construct” their own meanings based on their knowledge when properly guided in the process. In such learning environments, the teacher becomes a “tutor” or “facilitator” who helps the learners to learn, guides them to take decisions on what to learn and how, provides them with the necessary tools to construct their own meanings, and prepares them to move from being teacher-dependent to becoming independent learners. Coll (1990) calls this learning process: “progressive 204 G. Placci and A. M. Longhini ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 transfer of responsibility and control”, which refers to the controlled assistance that the teacher offers the learner in order to accompany him/her during the process of learning. Closely related to this is Bruner’s concept of “scaffolding” (Bruner, 1985) which explains that learning takes place progressively. A very important aspect in this learner-centered education and teacher-learner interaction is the concept of autonomy (Benson & Voller, 1997, Gardner & Miller, 1999). Gardner & Miller define independent learning as one stage in a process in which learners [...] pursue their personal language learning goals, [...] accept responsibility for decision-making [...], learn about the importance of reflection on their learning and how it can help them to redefine their goals to make them constantly relevant to their needs and wants (Gardner & Miller 1999:13). Autonomous learners are aware of their own needs to become more independent, to choose what to learn and how, to develop the ability to control their own learning, at their own pace, so that they can use this knowledge in any learning situation they may encounter at any stage in their life. This process of learning is also greatly determined by the learners’ own motivation, learning styles and capacity to be responsible for their own learning, together with the development of effective learning strategies. The importance of the development of learning strategies to promote independent learning has been widely upheld by research in the areas of second language acquisition (SLA) and second/foreign language teaching methodology. Research done in these areas shows that most learners do not spontaneously use language learning strategies and fail to see the real value of their use, and that instruction on learning strategies is beneficial to students learning a second/foreign language (see Bedell & Oxford, 1996, for a comprehensive review of relevant studies). Language learning strategies have been defined as “tools for active self-directed involvement, which is essential for developing communicative competence” (Oxford 1990:1). Direct strategies A strategic, process-oriented approach... 205 ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 are those which involve direct learning and use of the target language and require mental processing (e.g. memory, cognitive and compensation strategies). Indirect strategies are those which support and manage language learning without directly involving the target language (e.g. metacognitive, affective and social strategies). These two major classes support each other and are equally important in the learning process (Oxford, 1990). Regarding the skill of reading in particular, it is now widely agreed that reading is an active process in which the reader simultaneously activates his/her systemic knowledge (i.e. knowledge of the language system) and his/her schematic knowledge (i.e. knowledge of the world, background knowledge of the content, discipline). Given the particular situation of ESP learners, who are highly literate in their specific disciplines but are not proficient in their L2 language skills, our ESP course focuses on the learners’ processes of language development and reading comprehension of the text, which is realized through the contribution of their systemic knowledge and their schematic knowledge. These processes are enhanced through the application of learning strategies, mainly for reading comprehension (cognitive, metacognitive and monitoring strategies), that promote independent reading. With this in mind, we have designed the activities in our teaching materials. 3. Our ESP course and course materials Our ESP course consists of aproximately 120 teaching hours; we meet our students twice a week, in two-hour lessons, for an academic year. Our approach is interactive and learner-centered, and our class methodology centers on strategy instruction. Learners are trained in the use of strategies that aim at developing the language skills needed to promote effective reading comprehension. Awareness of strategy use (i.e. why, when, how to use those strategies which best help them in the process) is particularly emphasized. Controlled teacher assistance is realized by verbalizing the processes needed to perform the tasks (Longhini, Chiappello & Valsecchi, 2002). Teacher assistance is gradually reduced, as learners monitor and direct their own learning, and are encouraged to apply this knowledge to new 206 G. Placci and A. M. Longhini ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 situations. The ultimate aim of our course is to develop reading comprehension strategies that promote independent reading and learning autonomy. Strategy instruction is continuously done in tandem with language, grammar and vocabulary development. Because our learners do not usually have a threshold of linguistic competence in L2 on which to develop their reading skills, we need to train them in lower-level skills, i.e., those that relate to the understanding of the language system –lexical and grammatical formssimultaneously with higher-level skills, i.e., those that require topdown processes of reasoning and thinking. We believe that the effective use of strategies can enhance this development. For this purpose, in our classes we use basically two classifications of strategies: Oxford’s classification (Oxford, 1990) of direct and indirect strategies, and Gissi Sarig’s classification of reading comprehension strategies (in Cohen, 1986) which includes four main reading move types (technical-aid, clarification and simplification, coherence-detecting, and monitoring moves). These two classifications serve as rationale for the design of our class material. In order to facilitate the learners’ interpretation of texts while simultaneously improving their language skills we chose to base our approach on systemic functional grammar. We find that the way this model of language explains the different kinds of meanings a text encodes (Halliday & Hasan, 1976,1990) suits the needs of our ESP course. Each lesson we teach addresses questions aimed at unveiling the ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings of the reading texts that we use as didactic units. This is reflected in the variety of activities that propose problem-solving tasks related to the identification of grammatical and lexical forms, as well as text cohesion and coherence, and genre awareness. However, for the sake of simplifying our communication with the students, we have avoided, in general, the use of systemic functional grammar terminology. We believe that grammar is a necessary tool to access the text, but it is not the ultimate aim in our classes. A strategic, process-oriented approach... 207 ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 Another important element that characterizes our ESP course is the use of L1 in the classroom. The students read authentic texts written in English, but the worksheets for the exploitation of the texts are presented in Spanish, and classroom discourse (basically the students’ and teacher’s verbalization of the processes of comprehension) is also done in Spanish. Our approach makes the use of the bilingual dictionary essential; thus, we train our students in how to use the bilingual dictionary strategically and effectively. For the purpose of developing reading skills together with language skills, we work with a reading manual, “Process-oriented Approach for an ESP Reading Course in the Humanities” (Longhini & Placci, 2002), and a glossary of key grammatical elements for skillful moves in reading comprehension (Martinez & Longhini, 1997), especially designed for our ESP course. The manual and the glossary are used together and they support each other. These materials follow the lines of a constructivist didactic strategy that we have been using and adapting for over fifteen years (Longhini & Placci, 1998, 1988, 1985), and they seek to transfer to practical application an approach that reflects the contributions based on the latest findings in L2 reading research, cognitive psychology and educational psychology. The reading manual consists of a compilation of original texts that are representative of various discourse genres in the academic field (mainly scientific papers, reports, and reaseach articles taken mostly from specialized and scientific journals written in English, or multimedia encyclopedias), and the corresponding worksheets for the exploitation of the texts. These worksheets present a wide range of activities that aim at developing lowerlevel skills and higher-level skills simultaneously, and they foster systematic application of comprehension strategies. This is done through the following devices: the application of reading strategies and awareness of strategy use; grammar sections that include explanations, examples, grammar rules and tips for rule memorization; sections for special language difficulties; sections with morphological analysis and a list of affixes; the application of memory 208 G. Placci and A. M. Longhini ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 strategies for specific vocabulary; cross-references that aim at articulating and recycling the activities. In order to exemplify our methodology and course materials, the following section focuses on some of the activities from the manual and how they are exploited in class. 4. Sample Activities One activity designed mainly to develop lower-level skills is the recognition of grammar words (close-group) and content words (open-group). This activity aims at raising learners’ awareness of the existance of these two groups of words and their main differences, and the importance of learning the functions of grammar words to access the text more quickly and smoothly. Students are trained in the use of: (a) the glossary of key grammatical elements, how and why to use it, (b) the bilingual dictionary mainly for content words, and (c) the list of affixes in the manual as an aid to do morphological analysis. Sample activity taken from “Práctico Nº 1” in the manual, pages 5-9. 1) Lea el siguiente texto: ¿Lo entiende? ¿Puede decir de qué se trata? JUNGLE ______ RAIN FOREST Jungle ______ rain forest ______ terms ______ ______ often used synonymously ______ ______ little precision. ______ ______ meaningful ______ restrictive ______ ______ terms ______ rain forest, ______ refers ______ ______ climax ______ primary forest ______ regions ______ high rainfall (greater ______ 1.8 m/70 ______ per year), chiefly ______ ______ exclusively found ______ ______ tropics. Rain forests ______ significant ______ ______ valuable timber resources, ______ ______ ______ tropics ______ afford sites ______ commercial crops ______ ______ rubber, tea, coffee, bananas, ______ sugarcane. ______ ______ include ______ ______ ______ last remaining areas ______ ______ Earth ______ ______ ______ unexploited economically ______ inadequately known scientifically. (continues) A strategic, process-oriented approach... 209 ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 Palabras ausentes: also / and (6) / are (4) / as / both / but (2) / for (2) / in (4) / is / more / not / of (3) / or / some / such / than / that (2) / the (6) / their / these / they (2) / to / which / with (2) 2) Estudie la lista de palabras ausentes: ¿Conoce sus significados? ¿Qué tipo de palabras son? ¿Cree que su significado es importante para la comprensión global del texto? ¿Por qué si/ porqué no? Explique y comente con sus compañeros y profesora. 3) Intente colocar las palabras ausentes en el texto: ¿Cómo lo hace? 4) Lea el siguiente texto: ¿Lo entiende? ¿Puede decir de qué se trata? ______ and ______ ______ Throughout ______, ______ have ______ed on ______ ______ for ______ ______, ______, and ______ ______. In ______ ______ of ______ ______ ______, the ______ of "______ ______ " has ______ed ______ of the ______ ______. In this ______ of ______, _____ are ______ed in ______ ______ that are ______ed for ______ or ______ ______ and then ______ed; if the ______ are ______ed before ______ ______ has ______ed itself, a ______ ______ of the ______ ______. On the ______ of ______, the ______ ______ ______ has been almost ______ly ______ed and ______ed with ______ ______ or ______ ______ such as ______. (continues) Palabras ausentes: abandon / agriculture / agricultural purposes / cause / crop / cultivate / deterioration / encroach / establish / forest / history / humans (2) / island / Java / kill / living space / lowland primary forest / plantation crops / plots / practice / primary forest / primary vegetation / progressive deterioration / rain forests (2) / remove / replace / result / rice fields / rubber / seasons / shifting cultivation / small plots / system / three / timber / total / trees / two / upland tropical forests / vast portions / 5) Estudie la lista de palabras ausentes: ¿Conoce sus significados? ¿Qué tipo de palabras son? 216 G. Placci and A. M. Longhini ELIA 4, 2003, pp. 201-218 References Bedell, D. & R. Oxford. 1996. “Cross-cultural comparison of language learning strategies in the People’s Republic of China and other countries” in Rebecca L. Oxford (Ed.) Language Learning Strategies Around the World: Cross-cultural Perspectives. 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