جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « esp » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

This study aimed to discover and compare students' and instructors’ present needs in ESP Social Sciences courses in Iranian universities using the applied descriptive survey method. The population of this study consisted of 98 Social Sciences students at B.A level and 30 ESP instructors. Both students and instructors were selected purposefully from some universities of Markazi province, including Islamic Azad University of Ashtiyan Branch, Arak State University, Islamic Azad University of Arak Branch as well as Arak Farhangian University. To collect the data, two questionnaires, which were adapted from Mazdayasna and Tahririan (2008), were employed that included four English language skills. The results indicated a significant difference between the perceptions of the students and their instructors about their preferred skills. For the students, reading (Mean Rank (MR)= 3.77) was the most preferred skill as the present need, and it was followed by writing (MR = 3.07), listening (MR= 1.76), and speaking (MR = 1.41). However, for instructors, reading (MR = 3.63) was the most preferred skill as present need, followed by writing (MR= 3.12), speaking (MR= 2), and listening (MR= 1.25). Based on the results, revision of the current program seems to be necessary to provide the Iranian Social Sciences students with more effective ESP courses. This study may have some implications for ESP instructors, students, ESP curriculum developers, and syllabus designers.

This study investigated the effectiveness of the Process-Genre Approach (PGA) in enhancing the writing skills of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students in Iran, specifically focusing on business letter writing. The traditional product-based approach to teaching writing has proven to be ineffective, prompting the exploration of alternative approaches. In order to conduct the study from Azad University, Urmia branch, the researcher asked 80 male and female sophomore ESP business students to take part in the study. Results of the analysis of one-way and two-way ANOVA showed that process genre approach had positive effects on writing skill development among male and female ESP business students. Moreover, no significant difference was observed between writing skill development of ESP business students across genders.

Critical English for academic purposes (CEAP) has been an attempt to challenge the status quo in English for academic purposes (EAP) education. However, it has not received due attention in the literature. For the same reason, this study concentrated on how the Iranian EAP teachers and students perceived the three key CEAP modules of needs/right analysis, power, and dialogue/hope. As its secondary aim, this study also focused on how much the instructor practiced what they perceived of CEAP in their classrooms. For gathering the quantitative data, the main components of the CEAP framework formed the basis for the preparation and validation of a Likert-type questionnaire to measure the respondents’ perceptions of CEAP. In order to complement the results of the questionnaire data on the perception of CEAP, a semi-structured interview protocol was developed. The results for the first research question showed that both participating groups' opinions of CEAP were quite similar. The discrepancy between teachers’ questionnaire and interview data demonstrated that a praxis breakdown occurred as a result of an imbalance between the EAP teachers' knowledge and practice of CEAP in their classroom. Additionally, the qualitative data analysis showed that there was little contact between ESP teachers and students while developing the EAP curricula and instructional strategies. Students were also viewed as obedient and passive actors, required to carry out the predetermined institutional requirements established by the departments or curriculum designers. The findings of this study have implications for ESP teachers and material developers.

This research synthesized the methodological issues of studies published in English for Specific Purposes from its debut in 1980 up to 2020, from both an overall perspective and also periodically in four decades. To this aim, we examined 617 empirical articles with regard to two themes: (a) research methodology, and (b) data sources. More specifically, we probed into the methodological designs, how they were integrated and the points of departure in qualitative research. Our results brought to the fore that the majority of ESP articles were framed as combined methods studies, most frequently concurrent designs, dominated by qualitative data and data collection. As well, about half of qualitative studies did not specify their approach and the majority of quantitative works utilized descriptive statistics and combinations of different tests. Pertaining to data sources, text samples as well as an amalgamation of different data collection techniques were the most prominent ones. Based on these results and discussion, we provided empirically–grounded recommendations and suggestions for promoting methodological transparency and rigor for the prospective studies for the field of ESP and applied linguistics in general.

The present study made an effort to determine the impacts of proactive and retroactive meta-cognitive strategy instruction on Iranian ESP learners’ autonomy. Furthermore, it strived to examine the degree to which the interaction between this instruction and proactive/retroactive instruction conditions influenced these learners’ autonomy in their courses. To this end, first, the researchers selected 168 intermediate-level ESP learners from among the ESP learners of Islamic Azad University (Tabriz Branch) as the participants. Second, they non-randomly assigned the participants to four groups including the proactive experimental group, retroactive experimental group, proactive control group, and retroactive control group. Third, the researchers administered the autonomy pretest to all of the groups. Fourth, they used the Adobe Connect Learning Management System to provide the proactive experimental group, and the retroactive experimental group with their relevant treatments in ten sessions. Nonetheless, they used traditional language instruction techniques to provide the control groups with their instruction. Fifth, the researchers administered the autonomy posttest of the study to the participants after the end of the treatment sessions. Finally, they used SPSS 24 to analyze the data. The results showed that meta-cognitive strategy instruction ameliorated the participants’ autonomy. Moreover, the retroactive instruction condition was more efficacious than the proactive condition. In addition, the interaction between meta-cognitive strategy instruction and retroactive condition had a significant positive effect on the learners’ autonomy development. The results may provide ESP teacher educators, syllabus designers, and instructors with guiding principles regarding meta-cognitive strategy instruction.

This study aimed at validating the already-proposed pluralistic curriculum model for ESP in Iran. In line with the objectives of the present study, a correlational-survey design was used by utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) (i.e., exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis). The participants recruited for this study were in the two groups. The first group consisted of 120 male and female ESP students studying at different fields at the B.A. level in different universities of Iran. The second group consisted of 100 Iranian male and female ESP teachers teaching ESP courses at the B.A. level in different universities of Iran. The two groups were selected through purposeful sampling. The present study used a researcher-made questionnaire for the purpose of data collection, that was developed based on the already-proposed model. Data analysis was conducted through SEM (i.e., exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis) and Cronbach’s Alpha test. According to the results, the already-proposed model pluralistic curriculum model for ESP in Iran consists of three main components including pluralistic ESP teaching, pluralistic ESP content and materials, and pluralistic ESP assessments. Moreover, the results of SEM and Cronbach’s Alpha test confirmed the validity and reliability of the already-proposed pluralistic curriculum model for ESP in Iran. The results have some implications for ESP curriculum developers, teachers, and students.

The main goals of the study were to decipher the English language needs of dental students and to evaluate the effectiveness of the recent official English for specific purposes (ESP) book published for Iranian dental students by SAMT Publication. Accordingly, the study sought to determine whether this book has the potential to meet the specific needs of dental students. Needs analysis data were gathered by interviewing 34 ESP stakeholders from two universities of medical sciences in Iran. The interviews attempted to examine the students' language needs, lacks, and preferences. Following the needs analysis, six evaluators evaluated the coursebook based on a book evaluation form. The results obtained from the needs analysis highlighted the significance of practicing 4 language skills in addition to medical terminology.      In terms of students' language skill lacks, it was found that the majority of the students had problems in listening, speaking, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The participants also reported the learners' preferences and some drawbacks of current ESP courses with respect to learning styles and methodology. Following the book evaluation process, it was concluded that even though the book did not gain a fully satisfactory score, among a few ESP books published for Iranian dental students, this book was the most appropriate one to be used in ESP courses. However, considering some points can surely improve our future ESP books and give the material developers a better understanding of ESP materials.

No pluralistic curricula have ever been developed for ESP education in the context of Iran. Therefore, the present study was conducted to design a pluralistic curriculum (PC) model for ESP in the Iranian setting. In so doing, the study benefited from presenting an analysis scheme in a qualitative method. The participants of the study consisted of 20 Iranian male and female ELT experts who were chosen through purposive sampling from various universities of Iran, including Tehran University, Isfahan University, University of Shahid Chamran, University of Shiraz, Shahid Rajaei University, University of Allameh Tabatabaei, and the University of Tarbiat Modares, from among the teachers whose educational and research interests were curriculum planning and teaching materials, who had a history of teaching and research in TEFL for over 10 years. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather the needed data. The results showed that the PC components for ESP include three main components: pluralistic ESP teaching, pluralistic ESP materials, and pluralistic ESP content. Each of these components included several subcomponents. The findings indicated that if educational systems become pluralistic, students can achieve academic success with full potential in ESP courses by joining different groups such as racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.

Although decades of research have documented teachers’ interactive pedagogical decisions and reasoning in education, decisions and their underlying reasoning by English for specific purposes (ESP) teachers have remained under-explored. This qualitative multiple case study sought to explore cabin crew ESP teachers’ decisions and their underlying pedagogical reasoning in reading instruction. Four ESP teachers, including two language teachers and two content teachers, were selected through purposive sampling from different aviation training centers. The videotaped recordings of eight sessions of ESP reading instruction and the related field notes were analyzed deductively based on areas of teachers’ decision-making, and the transcriptions of audiotaped stimulated recall interviews were analyzed inductively based on teachers’ underlying pedagogical reasoning for each category of decisions. The findings revealed a distinctive difference between the two groups of ESP teachers’ decision-making and pedagogical reasoning. The focus of language teachers’ decisions and reasoning was on helping learners to improve their language achievement. On the other hand, content teachers put more weight on teaching required concepts based on learners’ needs in order to improve their occupational performance. These findings have implications for the collaboration of language teachers and content teachers to bridge the instructional gaps in ESP instruction.

No pluralistic curricula have ever been developed for ESP education in the context of Iran. Therefore, the present study was conducted to design a pluralistic curriculum (PC) model for ESP in the Iranian setting. In so doing, the study benefited from presenting an analysis scheme in a qualitative method. The participants of the study consisted of 20 Iranian male and female ELT experts who were chosen through purposive sampling from various universities of Iran, including Tehran University, Isfahan University, University of Shahid Chamran, University of Shiraz, Shahid Rajaei University, University of Allameh Tabatabaei, and the University of Tarbiat Modares, from among the teachers whose educational and research interests were curriculum planning and teaching materials, who had a history of teaching and research in TEFL for over 10 years. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather the needed data. The results showed that the PC components for ESP include three main components: pluralistic ESP teaching, pluralistic ESP materials, and pluralistic ESP content. Each of these components included several subcomponents. The findings indicated that if educational systems become pluralistic, students can achieve academic success with full potential in ESP courses by joining different groups such as racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.

Textbooks are an indispensable part of ELT. Meanwhile, higher-order thinking plays an important role in our lives, and it has a long-lasting impact on all parts of society, such as education, job, etc. Therefore, given the importance of this criterion, this study aims at comparing EGP textbooks with ESP textbooks to see which group of textbooks is more significant in terms of higher-order thinking skills of creating, evaluating, and analyzing. To this end, the activities of the odd-numbered lessons in 12 ESP textbooks and four EGP book series were analyzed based on Anderson’s (2001) revised taxonomy of bloom. The findings revealed that there is a significant difference between ESP and EGP textbooks in terms of higher-order thinking as well as lower-order thinking. The higher-order thinking activities were more dominant in ESP textbooks. In sharp contrast, lower-order thinking was more dominant in EGP textbooks. Therefore, the findings substantiated that the ESP books are more effective in helping learners and educators promote the higher-order thinking than EGP textbooks.

EFL teachers’ Continuing Professional Development (CPD) has always been of much concern to all applied linguists and EFL teachers. The present study investigates Iranian ESP/EAP teachers' kinds of CPD activities. To this end, a mixed-methods research design has been applied. In the first phase, a phenomenological research method was used. Seventeen participants were interviewed, and the main CPD activities were extracted through content analysis of the interviews. The participants argued that they developed their profession through teaching (work), continuing their education, attending CPD events such as conferences and workshops, presenting their works in CPD events, and self-study activities such as reading journals, books, and watching films and movies, etc. In the second phase, a researcher-developed instrument was administered to 60 male and female ESP teachers who were selected through convenience sampling among all those who taught ESP at the State and Azad Universities in Tehran. The data were collected and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that male and female teachers do some common CPD activities. However, male and female teachers are different in terms of some other CPD activities. The findings have several implications for administrators, higher education institutes, teacher trainers, and teachers of the other majors.

Investigating stakeholders' perceptions about course success has been signified as a useful method in program evaluation. This study evaluated English for Specific Purposes (ESP) programs in engineering departments at Iranian state universities by examining stakeholders' views. Engineering students (N=100) and ESP practitioners (N=8) participated in interviews, and non-participant observations were carried out to better understand the learning and teaching contexts. Content analysis of the interviews showed that some obstacles such as 1) low GE proficiency of students and heterogeneous classes, 2) limited time, 3) ministry decision for making the course elective, 4) students' low motivation, 5) teachers' low motivation, 6) inappropriate materials and teaching methods hindered course usefulness and effectiveness from the perspective of the participants. The findings urged the importance of comprehensive needs analysis to resolve the controversies among stakeholders about course objectives and contents and eliminate the mismatches between course objectives and students' expectations.

The current study investigated Iranian engineering students’ target situation and learning needs about a tertiary level course of English for specific purposes (ESP). To this end, a convenience sample including 27 ESP instructors and 222 students majoring in different fields of engineering from 10 randomly selected Iranian universities participated in an exploratory sequential mixed-method study. As the preliminary stage of the analysis, the instructor participants were interviewed about various domains representing the ESP needs of engineering students. The qualitative teacher-elicited data were used to develop a needs analysis questionnaire specific to the student participants of the study. The descriptive analysis of the responses provided by the engineering students to the needs analysis questionnaire shed light on the significant learner needs relevant to ESP learning and those related to the target situation of use. Providing a context-relevant scheme to design, evaluate, and modify ESP courses for Iranian students of engineering, the study’s findings could positively influence the current ESP pedagogy in Iran.

Numerous studies have examined the significance of motivation in learning English as a Foreign Language. However, only a few studies have focused on English for Specific Purposes settings. The current study examined the students’ perception of motivating teaching strategies in ESP classrooms. One hundred and sixty-three ESP students from a public university in Indonesia participated in the study. They completed a questionnaire which reflected their perceptions on the most and the least motivational teaching strategies. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 was used to analyze the data. The results show that ESP students preferred teaching practices that provided them with a comfortable and enjoyable environment as the most motivating ones. On the other hand, they perceived teaching strategies that were related to activities and assignments as the least motivational ones. The results of the study provide guidelines that may help the teachers to employ appropriate strategies that can motivate students in ESP classes.

The present research study provided a detailed description of needs analysis (NA) of border guarding police cadets in relation to the English Education requirement. English taught for border guarding purposes is known as English for specific purposes (ESP). The main objective of the study was development of an ESP curriculum for police officers at Amin Police University (APU) in Iran. Researchers of the study utilized a Qual/Quan design (exploratory sequential mixed methods design) which contained collection of both qualitative and quantitative research data. The study was conducted at the faculty of Border Guarding of APU based in Tehran, Iran in the academic year of 2019. Participants of the study included 249 current BA cadets, ESP teachers, and graduate frontline officers, managers, and commanders. The data were gathered utilizing semi-structured interviews and a researcher-made questionnaire. Through NA, the researchers analyzed the learners’ factors, present situation, target situation, and specialist discourse of the population. The results of the study were used to design and to develop an ESP course curriculum for police cadets studying at the Faculty of Border Guarding at APU in Iran.

The present paper provides a detailed description of target situation analysis of the ESP needs of border guarding police cadets. It was conducted as a part of a comprehensive ESP needs analysis research whose results have been used to develop an ESP curriculum for police cadets at Iran’s Amin Police University. The importance of English language in border guarding missions and lack of a proper ESP curriculum in the faculty were among the reasons of ESP curriculum development for police officers. The researchers utilized a qual/quan design (exploratory sequential - qualitative first). The study was conducted in 2018-2019. The participants were chosen from among 249 participants of current BA cadets, ESP teachers, and graduate frontline officers, managers, and commanders. The data were gathered utilizing semi-structured interviews and a researcher-made questionnaire. Through target situation analysis, the researchers determined the target needs in border guarding, the needs related to language skills in academic/target career, extra needs, the type of curriculum and materials they might need, the possible situations of applying English in the academic/target career, and specific border police content and subjects. The results are to be used in designing and developing an ESP curriculum, syllabus, and materials for police cadets who study ESP in the Faculty of Border Guarding at Amin Police University.

Developing the appropriate linguistic and documentation skills in specialised domains is one of the greatest challenges in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. Among other tools, corpora are intended as efficient resources students can use to improve and develop their thematic, terminological, and phraseological knowledge (Sánchez Ramos, 2020). Based on a non-experimental mixed-methods study, this paper reports the feasibility of a corpus-based approach to teaching medical translation at a postgraduate level. It analyses how a group of 40 postgraduate students at the University of Alcalá (Madrid, Spain) perceive the compilation of their own corpus and the usefulness of corpus management tools (CMTs) in solving thematic, terminological, and phraseological issues. The software LancsBox (Lancaster University) was used, which is a recently created CMT that incorporates automatic tagging, cutting-edge statistics information, and innovative visualization options. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of this data suggest that the ESP students were highly satisfied with the corpus-based approach. Our findings also reveal that postgraduate students incorporated CMTs during the whole course as documentation resources for their translation tasks, and they are willing to use them in their near future professional career. These results show the potential usefulness of CMTs and offer a way of integrating them into the ESP curriculum.