Taiwan International ESP Journal/台灣專業英語文期刊
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台灣專業英語文學會,正常發行
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- 期刊
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The internationalization of business has caused many local companies in Taiwan to adopt English as a lingua franca (ELF). When a Taiwanese metal fabrication business was purchased by a U.S.-based multinational conglomerate, the managers needed to quickly improve their English skills so they could communicate with their foreign bosses and co-workers. When the authors were called upon to serve as ELF trainers for 10 managers in fall 2013, we simultaneously conducted action research to explore best practices. This case study aims to (1) identify some issues of intercultural communication in international business, and (2) present pedagogical implications for teaching ELF in a business setting. Data were collected from personal stories told by the managers and correspondence they shared, which were transcribed and edited to serve as the main teaching materials for the class, allowing us to identify important areas of language and culture difference. Using actual workplace communication and stories about workplace issues proved to be a very useful pedagogical approach, allowing discussion of both English problems and cultural differences that had caused misunderstanding.
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This case study documents the disciplinary writing practices of a non-native English-speaking (NNES) postgraduate student in the field of aeronautics and astronautics engineering at an American university. It discusses how the process of learning to write in a specific discipline involved textual mentorship from disciplinary texts, negotiation with and feedback from the thesis advisor, and the writer's investment in disciplinary knowledge, writing expertise and discourse knowledge. In this case study, it was found that the co-authoring opportunity with the advisor was the most critical enculturation task, facilitating disciplinary writing practices. The revisions made across drafts of research abstracts revealed the multiple, authoritative roles the advisor played-as a language shaper, a content expert, and an experienced disciplinary writer. The level of textual participation also reflected the writer's degree of ownership of his texts. Becoming familiar with content-specific knowledge and discourse norms, the postgraduate writer took increasing responsibility in the practices of writing and publication, and made increasing contributions to his final written texts.
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In recent years, conducting job interviews in English for workplace purposes in non-English speaking countries has become a trend. To meet this demand in the workplace, colleges have been offering to prepare students for English interviews, particularly in EFL contexts (countries where English is used as a foreign language). However, little research has been conducted to understand how candidates in EFL contexts are prepared. In addition, while much research focuses on factors that might influence the results of the interviews from the perspective of native English speakers, few empirical studies have examined the criteria for evaluating English job interviews from the viewpoints of people both in academia and in the workplace. The purposes of this study are to understand how curricula for English interviews are designed by instructors with business-related experience and those without such experience, and to compare interview evaluation criteria between those in academia and in the workplace in the Taiwanese EFL context. The research employed a questionnaire and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 university instructors (5 with and 5 without business-related experience) and 20 managers in the business world (10 in hotels, and 10 in the information technology (IT) industry). Differences in curriculum design, evaluation criteria, and perceived issues and problems are found between instructors with different backgrounds and between the instructors and workplace managers. The results of the study yield important implications for university-workplace partnerships and contribute to our understanding of how to collaborate through partnerships in order to help job applicants prepare better for English job interviews.
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While the multimodality of ELT textbooks has in recent years been increasingly studied for their pedagogic implications, unlike other genres of texts such as webpages, advertisements, picture books, and newspapers, textbooks have less often been viewed as semiotic artefacts, a perspective which leads to the study of image and text for intermodal interaction. To address this gap in the literature, this study explores visual and verbal interaction in ELT textbooks. In particular, the article focuses on the conversation section of an EFL senior high school textbook in Taiwan. The study found that the multimodal nature of face-to-face communication and the turn-taking mechanisms involved in conversations render the relations between images and texts unique in language learning materials. Consequently, frameworks of image-text relations that are developed based on narratives (such as picture books) or information texts are not sufficient for the understanding of this particular genre of multimodal text. This article discusses the distinct ways in which visual and verbal modes interact in multimodal ELT conversation texts and provides a preliminary framework for future examinations of language learning materials of a broader scope.
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Grounded in genre theory and research (Hsiao & Yu, 2012; Kwan, 2006; Swales, 1990), this study explores a genre pedagogy at the graduate level focusing on literature reviews (hereafter LRs), since there is currently a paucity of published classroom-based research in this area. A set of LR teaching materials was designed to help students become aware of the text structure and features, and develop strategies to reproduce these features in their own LR writing. The teaching methods consisted of three inter-connected stages: (1) helping student writers conceptualize the move structure; (2) requiring them to identify the moves in sample LRs, and (3) comparing and contrasting high-rated and low-rated LRs in order to understand what moves are needed for a quality LR, and (4) then asking them to use the features they have learned in their LRs. The focal students were interviewed on the process they adopted in writing a literature review after the intervention. The findings, based on a generic structure analysis of focal students' LRs, are evidence of the strengths of this instructional design and provide suggestions for genre-based pedagogy, which will be useful for thesis writing teachers.
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The present study examined the effect of three techniques (dictionary use, etymological analysis, and glossing) on vocabulary recognition and production. To fulfill the purpose of this study, 45 English for specific purposes (ESP) learners majoring in architecture at Azad University, Anzali branch, participated in this research. They were divided into three groups, and each group was randomly assigned to one kind of treatment (dictionary use, etymological analysis, and glossing). Prior to performing the treatment, a Michigan proficiency test was administered to measure the language proficiency of ESP learners and ensure the homogeneity of the learners. The three experimental groups undertook three tasks for six weeks. After the treatment, language learners took a vocabulary recognition test (VRT) and a vocabulary production test (VPT). Data were analyzed using SPSS. The results of data analysis showed statistically significant differences between the three treatment conditions. The results of two separate one-way ANOVA analysis procedures indicated that the experimental group assigned dictionary use recognized and produced words much better than the other two experimental groups, suggesting that the dictionary group had outperformed the other two groups.