Starting Out Right: Guiding Students Towards ESP
The 3rd Annual JALT CUE SIG ESP Symposium. Saturday, September 13th. Waseda University

Robert Moreau, University of Electro-Communications, rjm2141@tc.columbia.edu

Introduction

Using News Media as a source for students

One challenge facing teachers in many science andtechnical universities in Japan is how to effectively
prepare ﬁrst year students for the ESP courses they will
eventually need to attend later in their academic career.
This presentation guides teachers through choosing topics
for student activities, using news media as source material
and using learning-based evaluation tools. Also included in
the presentation is a suggested website to help students
to become more autonomous vocabulary learners.

Advantages

Project Choice: Cognitive Considerations
Early in the teaching process teachers must consider
which topics may be at a suitable level for their students
to engage in effectively. Starting with less cognitively
challenging tasks can help build conﬁdence and ﬂuency
before moving on to more challenging tasks.
Cognitively Undemanding• Fresh and topical, using current language.
• A variety of topics are covered including scienceand technology.
• Written in a way to appeal to general audience.
Disadvantages• Extra instruction can be required to make students
aware of the differences between newspaper language
and organization and that which is required in academic
language.
• Some simpliﬁcation may be needed to make the source
understandable to the students

Assessing Projects with learning tools:
Checklists and Rubrics
Checklists

ABC
D° ignorance - there may be only a partial understanding.

Context Reduced

Context Embedded• Why checklists are needed:

Cognitively Demanding
Figure 1. Range of contextual support and degree of cognitive involvement incommunicative activities (Cummins 1983: cited in Myskow, Underwood and Hattori,2012, p. 24).

Some Example Activities:° ineptitude - the knowledge exists yet students may
fail to apply it correctly (Gawande, page 8)• Checklists are thus useful in guiding students to include
speciﬁc requirements in a project
Rubrics• Where checklists generally deal with speciﬁc requirements
a rubric can be a useful teaching tool, in giving more holistic
feedback to a project. Rubrics can also provide a very
efﬁcient way of grading for teachers.

Outside the classroom:
Autonomous vocabulary learning• www.Lextutor.ca offers a variety of tools that students
can be trained to use in order to build their vocabulary
independently.

A Quadrant
Personal diary, speaking about daily events.
B Quadrant
Essay or speech on a topic familiar to the students.
C Quadrant
Offer opinions on a less familiar topic, conform to academic
register.
D Quadrant
Academic argument on an unfamiliar topic.
References
Cummins, J. (1983). Conceptual and linguistic foundations of language assessment, in Issues of language
assessment volume II: Language assessment and curriculum planning. S. Snildner, ed. Springﬁeld Il:Illinois State Board of Education
Bhatia, V.K., (1993). Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. NY: Longman.
Ferris, D.R., Hedgcock, J.S. (2005). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process and practice. NJ: Erlbaum.
Gawande, A. (2009). The checklist manifesto. NY: Henry Holt
Myskow, G., Underwood, P.R., Hattori, T. (2012). EFL writing in Japan : theory, policy, andpractice. Osaka: Mediaisland.