|
left
|
| |
|
Teaching Trial and Analysis of English for Technical Communication
|
| Ping
Duan & Weiping Gu
|
Bio Data
Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100054, P. R.
China
|
Table
of Contents
Abstract
I.
Development of Teaching Theories of ESP
II.
Textbook of English for Technical Communication
III.
Questionnaire Analysis for ETC Teaching
V.
Conclusion
Bibliography
Abstract
English
for technical communication (ETC) is a novel development of English
for specific purpose on the demand of the society for improving
students' ability in communicating technical information. To assess
the applicability of ETC teaching in China, a specially designed
ETC course was delivered to five classes of postgraduates, and
questionnaire and test analysis were carried out at end of the
course. The results showed that the ETC training significantly
developed students' skills in technical reading and writing, but
not so much in speaking. This requires improving pedagogics and
increasing the mutual communication so as to raise students' ability
in oral English.
Key words: English for technical communication, English for specific
purpose? postgraduates
The basic period of college English teaching in China is influenced
by test-oriented education. Both teachers and students value test
results more than language practice, and many students with high
test scores are comparatively poor in actual speaking and writing,
especially in talking business of their own profession. Therefore,
how to solve these problems in the period of postgraduate education,
so as to raise students' ability of technical or professional
communication in English, is an important of project of research
in Chinese college English education and in TEFL.
|
I.
Development of Teaching Theories of ESP
English for specific purpose, or ESP for short, is a pedagogy
in which the syllabus, contents and methods are determined according
to the needs of learners' specialized subjects. Ever since 1950s,
EST has experienced several phases of development. At first, people
tried to establish the syllabus and curriculum of EST through
register analysis, that is, according to the features of grammar
and vocabulary of the language used in certain specialty. A Course
in Basic Scientific English compiled by Ewer and Latorre (1969)
is a typical example of the syllabus on register analysis.
Register analysis focused on language at sentence level, while
discourse analysis shifted attention to the level above the sentence.
It focused on how sentences are organized to form discourse, and
the linguistic methods used to determine the modes of organization.
A Discourse Approach by Louis Trimble (1985) is representative
of this approach.
Target situation analysis held that the purpose of an ESP course
is to enable learners to function adequately in a target situation.
Therefore the ESP course design should proceed by identifying
the target situation first, and then carrying out a rigorous analysis
of the linguistic features of that situation. The process is usually
known as needs analysis. Technical English by Pickett and Laster?1980?is
typical of this approach.
Based on the generalization commitment of cognitive linguistics,
which seeks the general principles of language phenomena, the
skills-centered approach holds that "underlying all language
use there are common reasoning and interpreting processes, which,
regardless of the surface forms, enable us to extract meaning
from discourse." (Hutchinson 1987?13). "There is a core
of language which can be identified as "academic" and
which is not subject-specific." (Chitravelu, 1980). Although
the contents of various specialties are different, the types of
documents they use are similar to each other. On the basis of
the common-core language teaching theory, the pedagogy of technical
communication, TC for short, aims at finding out the general conventions
that guide the style, function, discourse and rhetoric of all
the technical documents, and applying them to ESP teaching practice
in all specialties. Therefore, no matter what specialty you major
in or what business you undertake, so far as you have mastered
the general conventions in TC, you will be able to communicate
effectively in your own profession. Communicating Technical Information
by Pattow and Wresch?1998?is typical of technical communication.
II.
Textbook of English for Technical Communication
Along with the development of theory and practice of ESP and the
computer technology, technical communication, or TC, as a novel
interdiscipline of learning, is quite popular in American and
Canadian universities. According to the data issued by Society
for Technical Communication, TC is taught as a course or specialty
in over 120 universities in USA. When we studied in the English
Department of University of North Carolina, we had careful research
and extensive discussion with experts Todd Taylor and Steven Katz
on TC in both theory and practice. After returning to China, we
compiled the textbook English for Technical Communication, ECT
for short, for Chinese students. This is an advanced technical
or professional English course for postgraduates and undergraduates
at the senior level, for the purpose to raise students' ability
of practical communication, esp. standardization in technical
writing. The book consists of five aspects.
1. Technical Reading: introducing skills in reading technical
documents and methods in information retrieval and collection.
2. Technical Writing: introducing writing skills in technical
definition, experimental description, abstract, analysis and argumentation,
Ethics and documentation, etc.
3. Document Design: introducing skills of designing documents
on computers, including format, designing principles and standardization,
etc.
4. Types of Technical Documents: introducing the features of various
technical documents including style, rhetoric, and conventions
in writing.
5. Oral Communication: introducing the purpose, objects, needs
and strategic of oral communication in various situations, including
business reception, conference report, techniques of presentation,
interview for job application, etc.
Each
chapter in the book is divided into two parts. The first part
introduces the language features of technical documents and communication
skills; the second part provides examples of technical documents
with these features for practice. The book provides the general
conventions for writing all kinds of technical documents, which
can also be used as a reference book for students in writing practice.
III.
Questionnaire Analysis for ETC Teaching
To test the practicability of the ECT course, teaching practice
was carried out for postgraduates of Grade 2001 in both Capital
University of Medical Sciences and Medical College of Zhengzhou
University. Students received two hours of ETC lessons each week,
and the course lasted 18 weeks. The instructors made full use
of multimedia facilities in ETC teaching, combined audio input
with video and text input, made systematical analysis in style,
discourse and rhetoric for different genres of technical documents,
carried our the practice in technical reading, writing and speaking,
and endeavored to raise students ability in technical communication
by all means.
Combining the methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis,
the authors carried out questionnaire and evaluation analysis
in 224 students from 5 classes registering the course. Of the
221questionnaires issued, 215 were collected; the rate of collection
was 97.2%. Descriptive statistics was carried out with 100 random
samples (20 samples from each class). The reliability of the data
was determined according to frequency of choices. The contents
of each item in the questionnaire and the results of the statistical
analysis are as follows.
1.
Which do you think is the English ability you need to improve
most urgently in your work? (Multiple choice)
|
| |
| From
the statistic results, it can be seen that coping with examination
is no longer the target need for postgraduates; neither is reading
or translation. Their needs for ability in speaking, listening and
writing English are urgent, with speaking ranking the first.
2.
Do you think it necessary for postgraduates to study ETC course? |
| |
The
results show that 96% of the graduates held that it was necessary
for them to study ETC course as a way to improve their technical communication,
which proves the feasibility of ETC teaching.
3. Which of your following language abilities is improved through
ETC teaching? |
| |
Because
of the curriculum arrangement, ETC course was delivered chiefly to
raise students' ability in technical reading and writing. The oral
and audio lessons were delivered separately by foreign instructors.
No wonder the students' speaking ability was not significantly improved
in this course.
4. Do you think the teaching material in ETC course is practical?
|
| |
The
results show that the practicality of ETC teaching was confirmed by
85% of the students.
5. Is ETC course difficult or easy for you? |
| |
More
than half of the students felt the course difficult. It is a bit beyond
students' level at present. However, along with the advance of English
level of the newly enrolled students, the course tends to become moderate
in the future.
6. Do you think that your ability of professional communication in
English has been improved by taking the ETC course? |
| |
Of
the samples, 79% confirmed that their ability in professional communication
had been improved; however there were still 29% of the students who
thought otherwise. This result probably concerns some students' special
disciplines, which reflects an even higher requirement for the book's
scope of application.
7. Which do you think is the ability of professional communication
you need to improve most urgently in your work? (Multiple choice) |
| |
| 8.
Which of your following abilities has been improved through your study
of ETC course? |
| |
Question
seven and eight reflect the comparison between the target needs and
the teaching results. Question seven reflects students' target needs,
the results of which show the students' high demands on technical
writing and speaking, and their neglect of discourse analysis and
rhetorical appreciation. Most of the science students are content
with superficial understanding of texts and this is an obstacle to
advanced reading and deeper understanding of technical documents.
IV. Assessment for ETC Teaching
To determine the reliability of the questionnaire, a placement test
on students' ability in technical reading and writing was carried
out at the beginning of the semester, and an achievement test was
done at the end of the semester. The results of the two tests were
compared and analyzed. The reading test concerns students' ability
of information searching, understanding, summarizing and translating;
the writing test was chiefly on students' ability in writing standard
technical documents as abstracts and reports. The statistical comparison
of the two tests is presented in Table 4-1.
|
| Table
4-1 Comparison of Scores Between Placement Test and Achievement Test |
| |
| From
the comparison between the mean score of the placement test at the
beginning of the semester and that of the achievement test at the
end of the semester, it could be seen that students' ability in
technical reading and writing, especially writing, was significantly
improved through ETC course. This is because the students knew very
little of the conventions of technical writing before the course,
and the ETC teaching was a great help to the standardization of
the students' writing. The standard deviation of the writing score
in the achievement test is smaller than that in the placement test,
which means ETC teaching has reduced the dispersion degree in students'
scores, and therefore reduced students' score differences and raised
students' writing ability in general.
The standard deviation of the reading score in the achievement test
is, however, greater than that in the placement test, which means
ETC teaching has increased the dispersion degree in students' scores,
and therefore widened students' score differences. This explains
why some students complained in the questionnaire that the course
was too difficult for them to make any significant progress in reading.
From the assessment, it can be seen that the result of the test
analysis is in accordance with that of the questionnaire.
V. Conclusion
On the basis of the questionnaire and the test analysis of ETC teaching,
it can be concluded that students have a definite target need for
technical communication and it is necessary to deliver ETC course
to postgraduates. Most postgraduates desire to improve their abilities
in English listening, speaking and writing, but they neglect the
importance of style and rhetoric in advanced reading. The teaching
materials of ETC course are practical and have raised students'
ability in professional communication chiefly in the aspect of reading
and writing, but not so significantly in speaking. This defect can
be made up by delivering listening and speaking lessons separately
by foreign instructors. It also requires the instructors of ETC
course to improve their teaching methods. Student centered approach
should be adopted in ETC teaching and the mutual communication between
teachers and students should be emphasized in class to raise students'
oral ability in technical communication.
Bibliography
Burnett, R. E. 1997. Technical communication [M]. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company
Chitravelu, N. 1980 "English for Special Purposes Project"
in ELT Documents 107, British Council
Duan. P, Gu. W, & Ma. Y. 2001, English for Technical
Communication [M]. Beijing: Science Press
Ewer, J. R. And Latorre, G. 1969. A course in basic scientific
English [M]. London: Longman.
Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. 1987. English for specific
purpose [M]. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pattow, D., & Wresch, W. 1998. Communicating technical
information (2nd ed.) [M]. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,
Inc.
Pickett, N. A., & Laster, A. A. (1980). Technical English
[M]. New York: Harper & Row Publishers
Society for Technical Communication ( http://www.stc-va.org)
Trimble, L. 1985. EST: A Discourse Approach, Cambridge University
Press
|
|
|
right
|
