An Approach to Develop Genre Awareness for Japanese Science & Engineering Students
Masako Terui
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Kinki University
Social Needs/Problems

Goal/Solutions: Approach• Due to the limited number of academic posts, most students prefer working at a company
after graduation.

More emphasis on EOP (English for Occupational purposes) for science & engineering majors is required since ESP is designed to meet
specific needs of the learners. EAP (English for Academic purposes) is also useful as gateway to acquire genre awareness.

• However, students will work at a wide variety of companies in many fields. So students and instructors
at universities don’t know which English skills will be required at future workplace.

More emphasis on developing systemic literacy = genre awareness: genre features, moves and framework of genre texts, language features
to make genre texts useful and well understandable.

• Required level for business is CEFR B2 (Terui et al. 2014):
Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics,
including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.

ESP

Needs Analysis: To identify which genres are required for students’ future workplace. In ESP, instructors rely on ideas from professionals
in a discourse community of which students are members.

Genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and conventionalizedwith constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent positioning form and functional value.（Bhatia, 1993）
ESP concepts include:
1) Texts belong to a discourse community
2) Discourse community uses various genres
3) Genres can be analyzed via:i) Corpus analysis (words and collocations)ii) Move analysis (Swales, 1990)iii) OCHA approach (Noguchi, 2010)(Observe, Classify, Hypothesize, Apply for genre texts)iv) PAIL observation (Purpose, Audience, Information, Language features)

Why you should encourage your students to develop their genre awareness?
They can achieve the gap between the social needs and the reality of the Japanese undergraduate students bydeveloping their genre awareness because
1) the students are members in a discourse community which genre texts are frequently used for communication. So,2) the students try to analyze language features of genre texts and improve there reading skill,3) the students can develop systemic literacy (Noguchi 2010), such as genre awareness.

Textbook
Noguchi & Terui. 2010: Kinseido• Various genres are given to develop genreawareness.
• All materials are authentic genre texts.
• The class activities will be serve as a usefulbasis for analyses of students’ self-createdcorpora and moves of research paperarticles in the following fall semester.

Class activities: 2014 Spring Semester: about 250 3rd-year students in physics, IT, mechanical engineering

GenrePurpose of the text
is:
The text is aimed
at:（Audience)
The information
includes:

Unit1

Unit3

Unit4

Unit8

Unit 10

Unit 10

Safety Rules

Product Specifications

Instruction Manual

Science Feature Article

Company Website

Call for Papers

To give safety rules to follow when doing a science activity

To present the technical and other specific details

To explain how to use a device

To try to persuade people to eat less meat (and more vegetables) in order tohelp reduce greenhouse gases

To describer the company's efforts to promote its corporate social
responsibility

To ask those (=people who are) in a certain research area to submit papers
describing their researchStudents who will be doing an activity

The person who is going to use the productPeople who bought the productchildren

The general public, which include consumers/customers, investors andprospective employees

Young researchers who wish to present their research at a conference in theirresearch area

what to be careful about when doing a science activity and detailed
instructions on what should be done and what should not be done.

Descriptions of the components, specific dimensions and electrical power andvoltage details

How to use a kettle. This text uses illustration to show the parts and theirnames.

How food production can affect global warming

What the company has done using a table and graphs to present data on
reduction of CO2 emission and reduction of fuel consumption

1. The specification is consist of two parts: product description and technicaldata.
2. A table is given to show the product technical data.
3. Bullet points and a table are used.
4. Technical terms and units are used so that the readers can compare theproduct specifications with other ones easily.

1. The instruction manual is consist of two parts: Instructions and notes/don'ts. 1. The article is consist of a picture and several paragraphs.
2. Imperative form is used so that the readers can understand they have to
2. The picture is given with a brief introduction of the article
follow the instructions.
3. The first paragraph begins with a question to attract the readers attention.
3. For prohibited matter, sentences start with Do not, Never, Only etc.
4．In the second paragraph, the answer to the question is given to attract the
4. British English is used for the users in the UK.
readers attention.
5．The following paragraphs describe in details with specific numbers andcitations from research paper articles.
6.
In the end, thereaders can understand that the title is informative andBritish English VS American English:
environmental
friendly

1. Written in a clear and simple way so that the readers can understand thetext well.
2. Same words and expressions are used so that the readers can understand
Language features it's a rule.
3. Imperative form is used so that the readers can understand they have tofollow the rules.

Words & Phrases
you thinkimportant/useful

1. Never do any experiment･･･
2. Tell your teacher/the instructor immediately if an accident occurs.
3. Always wear your safety goggles･･････
4. ･･･upon completion of your activity/the experiment.
5. ･･･without the approval and direct supervision of your teacher/ theinstructor
6. Keep all food, drinks and snacks away from bounce houses.

mains VS outlet
1. This appliance can be used either with ….
2. Selector for …to… .
3. Removable ….
4. coffee filter~
5. ~system means

GB stands for Great Britain and is used in this manual but recently the UK is
used more often, which is corresponding to the US.

.

Further classactivities

1. Read several safety rules and summarized what you got.
2. Submitted the above assignment.
3. Read safety rules and answered to questions related to the rules at the ternend exam.

1. Found the specifications of a product your group (3-5 members) is interested 1. Read an instruction manual in which includes product specificationsin
2. Submitted the above assignment.
2. Made a PPT slide to describe the product and its specifications,
3. Read instruction manuals and answered to questions related to the rules at
3. Gave a 5-minute presentation in class.
the tern-end exam.
4. Read specifications and answered to questions related to the rules at thetern-end exam.

The assignments submitted in class and the results of the semester-end exam have shown that:
1. The students were able to understand the genres and grasped the genre features.
2. These class activities could encourage the students to develop their genre awareness.

global warming
greenhouse gases
methanecarbon dioxide
atmospherediet
fuelclimate
meat-eatervegetarian
1. Found a science feature article from TED and websites for news article.
2. Submitted the above assignment.

The conference dates, instructions for submission of proposals and various
deadlines, the reviewing process, caution against repetitive submission of thesame research, and suggested topics of interest
１．The company uses words and expressions that give the readers a strong
1. Bullet points are used so that the readersand positive impression. （Ex： We at (company name)、Impact/Charter etc.） 2. Fixed text structure, expressions, rhetorical order make the readers get the２．"We" "The product" "The company" are often used as a subject.
information easily.
3. Headings are useful to get the information quickly.

job hunting
apply for a job/a position
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
IR (Investor Relations)market （verb）←mass production
world's first productCO2 emission
zero emissions
sustainability
sustainable society
1. Visited a corporate website (TOYOTA) and compared company profiles
both in Japanese and English
2. Found a corporate profile in English, which you are interested in.
3. Summarized the corporate profile and submitted it..
4. Read corporate website and answered to questions related to the article atthe tern-end exam.

(youth) conferenceelectronicallysubmission
to submit
review
double-blind(ed)manuscript
including, but are not limited tofull paper
camera-readynotification (to notify)
1. Found a "Call for papers" in your own field.
2. Summarized what you found and submitted it.
3. Read "Call for robots" of an international competition and answered toquestions related to the text at the tern-end exam.

References:
Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing genre : Language use in professional settings. London: Longman.
Noguchi, J. (2010). Exploiting ESP Frontiers: Systemic Literacy, Life-Long Learning, ESP Bilingualism. Annual Report of JACET-SIG on ESP, 12, 3-13.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: 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.” Proceedings of the 19th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes,
126- 134. https://lsp2013.univie.ac.at/proceedings/