Poster Presentation

An Approach to Develop Genre

Awareness for Japanese Science &Engineering Students
Masako Terui
Kindai University
In the era of globalization, Japan needs good English education to maintainits position as a world leader in science and technology fields and to enable its
people to conduct their research and business affairs in English. Also, with therapid expansion of globalization in business fields, many companies in Japanare pressed with the need for more global human resources. Within the contextof corporate and trade expansion into high growth overseas markets in efforts
to revive Japan’s long-stagnant post-bubble economy, the shortage of “globallyqualified” human resources in Japan continues to present a serious problem. As
defined in a summary of policy proposals for the development of Japan’s global
human resources issued by the Japanese Cabinet on June 11, 2012, one of themost urgent requirements for global human resources are good communication
skills in foreign languages, emphasizing English communication skills, as theglobal language of science, trade, industry, and commerce.
Many Japanese university students in science and engineering, however, havenot been able to make significant improvements, in field specific communicativecompetencies, in particular, of their English communication skills. The rigorsof their academic programs generally offer them little time to allocate totheir English language studies because their curriculum is set up so that their
immediate priorities require devoting themselves to conducting research andexperiments in their field. In Japan, over the past decade, outcome data based210

Develop Genre Awareness, OnCUE Journal, 9(2), pages 210-218

on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have produced impressive results in field
specific English competencies and thus there has been an increasing recognitionof ESP as a more efficient and effective pedagogical approach.
The two defining features of ESP are its being designed to meet specificneeds of the learners and that ESP is centered on the language skills, discourseand genres appropriate to these activities (Dudley-Evans and St. John, 1998). In
this paper, the importance of the leaners’ needs and genre are emphasized.

Leaners’ Needs and Genre Analysis in ESP

ESP highlights the importance of a learner-oriented approach, encouraging
students to acquire applied technical vocabulary and field specific areas ofcommunicative competencies or “genres.” The term “genre” was ﬁrst introducedin the area of ESP in 1981 and has become an important notion in ESP. Genrestudies in ESP are based largely on Swales’ work (1990) on the discourse
structure and linguistic features of scientiﬁc reports. Genre, in ESP work, refers
to communicative events such as seminar presentations and academic essays.
Swales’ studies have had a strong influence on the teaching of academic writing
to graduate students of English as a second language (ESL). Yet, the emphasison the teaching of academic writing skills to native English speaking university
students or ESL students may differ when applied to learners in Japan. Therefore,
considering university-level English education from another ESP approach isnecessary to make its application optimal in Japan.
Moreover, Japanese university students in science and engineering preferworking in the private corporate sector after graduation because Japan is still
one of the world economic leaders and the number of academic posts is limited.
In fact, about 70% of university graduates and postgraduates who majoredengineering have become engineers at companies. Since students will go on
to work for a wide variety of companies in many fields, both students andinstructors at universities don’t know which English skills will be required at
the future workplace. Regarding the required English level for business, many
Japanese business persons have set CEFR (Common European Frameworkof Reference for Languages) B2 as the required goal: To be able to understand211

Teruithe main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including
technical discussions in his/her field of specialization (Araki et al., 2014; Terui etal., 2014). This suggests that employing an ESP approach is necessary also at theuniversity level.
The term “genre”, in ESP, refers to a recognizable communicative patternunderstood and utilized by the members of a professional and/or academic
community that is called a “discourse community.” Students are membersof a discourse community in which a genre text is frequently used forcommunication among its community members. With a working knowledgeof genre characteristics, communications can be more efficiently and effectively
conveyed, processed, and understood. This has direct relevance for the English
communication skills that are required for global human resources.
Table 1
Example of a Genre Analysis on Safety Rules (Unit 1)
Genre

Safety Rules

Purpose of the text is:

To give safety rules to follow when doing ascience activity

The text is aimed at:(Audience)

Students who will be doing an activity

The information includes:

What to be careful about when doing ascience activity and detailed instructions onwhat should be done and what should not bedone

Language features

1. Written in a clear and simple way so thatthe readers can understand the text well.2.
Same words and expressions are used sothat the readers can understand it’s a rule.
3. Imperative form is used so that thereaders can understand they have to follow
the rules.

Words & Phrases you think important/useful

1.
2.
3.
4.

Never do any experiment...
Always wear your safety goggles...
...upon completion of your activity...without the approval and directsupervision of the instructor
5. Keep all food, drinks and snacks awayfrom ....

212

Develop Genre Awareness, OnCUE Journal, 9(2), pages 210-218

Although there is a big gap between the social needs and the reality ofJapanese university students, they can close the gap by developing their genreawareness. The goal of this ESP genre-analysis-based approach is to develop
student’s systemic literacy (Noguchi 2010), such as an awareness of genrefeatures to identify framework structures.
This paper details how students can acquire an awareness of genres.

English for Science ClassA 90-minute 15-week ESP class is given to third-year students as an electiveclass choice from required courses at the Faculty of Science and Engineering ofa private university. The ESP classes are given to students of all 13 departmentsin the faculty, and my classes are given to students in mechanical engineering,information technology, and physics. The classes are popular among the students
and as many as about 80% of all the engineering majors have taken this class,for example. So, eight classes of 25-45 students are given per week. “Englishfor Science I” is for the spring semester and “English for Science II” is for thefall semester. Students can elect to take the first or the second course without
prerequisites for any single or both semesters.
The textbook “Essential Genres in SciTech English” was written by one ofJapan’s leading ESP professionals and me. The textbook includes 14 genres:
Safety Rules, Recipe, Product Specifications, Instruction Manual, Backgroundand Procedures of Laboratory Manual, Q&A: Facts (sheet), Science Feature
Article, Meeting Announcement, Company Website, Curriculum Vitae, Callfor Papers, Registration Form, Email, Research Paper Abstract. All the materials
are authentic genres, which are written for a certain purpose in a discourse
community and are distinct from standard and simplified materials written forgeneral language learning. Although some instructors worry that such authentic
materials may be too difficult for most university students, it is implicitly realizedthat graduating students will have to struggle with such authentic English on thejob.
Classroom facilities allow me to maximize the use of the ComputerAssisted Language Learning (CALL) and encourage students to utilize digital213

Teruiinformation. In ESP classes, moreover, students do not simply memorize theirtechnical terms but focus on the analyses of their data. The students are asked
to find the purpose, audience of a genre text, what kind of information this text
carries and what kind of language features this text has. They are encouraged
to discover from their own data the collocations of terms, verb tense, and howterms are used in a genre and in context, thus leading to effective application in
their written and oral communications. A table is given to the students in class tofill out their findings from genre analysis. Here is an example of a genre analysis
on Safety Rules (Unit 1).
1. Never do any experiment...
2. Always wear your safety goggles...
3. ... upon completion of your activity
4. ... without the approval and direct supervision of the instructor
5. Keep all food, drinks and snacks away from ....
The students are also asked to 1) read several safety rules and summarized
what you got, 2) submit the assignment, and 3) read safety rules and answered
to questions related to the rules for the semester-end exam. End result is acolor-coded progressively more developed table used for comparative study ofgenres, which facilitates the students to develop their genre awareness. (See theappendix) The assignments submitted in class, the results of the semester-end
exam and a post-course questionnaire have shown that the students were able tounderstand the genres and grasped the genre features.

References

Araki T., Terui, M., Fujita, R., Ando, M., Miki, T., & Naito, H. (2014).
Questionnaire survey on business meetings: English proficiency anddifficulty. JACET International Convention Selected Papers, 1, 56-77.
Retrieved from http://www.jacet.org/SelectedPapers/JACET53_2013_
SP_1.pdf#page=62
Noguchi, J. (2010). Exploiting ESP frontiers: Systemic literacy, lifelong
learning, ESP bilingualism. Annual Report of JACET-SIG on ESP, 12, 3-13.
Nogushi, J., & Terui, M. (2010). Essential Genres in SciTech English. Tokyo:214

Develop Genre Awareness, OnCUE Journal, 9(2), pages 210-218

Kinseido.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Terui, M., Fujita, R., Araki, T., Miki, K., Ando, M., Naito, H., & Terauchi,H. (2014). Questionnaire survey on difficulties encountered in English
business meetings at Japanese companies. In G. Budin & V. Lušicky (Eds.),
Proceedings of the 19th European Symposium on Languages for Special
Purposes (pp. 126-134). Retrieved from https://lsp2013.univie.ac.at/
proceedings/Author bio

Masako Terui is an Associate Professor of the Faculty of Science and Engineering
at Kindai University. She was the chair of the ESP Kansai chapter. Her researchinterests include English for science and engineering students, genre-analysis-based
approach and computer-assisted language learning. terui@kindai.ac.jp
Received: November 16, 2014
Accepted: July 23, 2016215

TeruiAppendix

Genres that students learn in a semester216

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217

Terui218