English for specific purposes: theoretical and practical aspect

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English for specific purposes: theoretical and practical aspect

Pernarivska T.P.,

Senior Lecturer at Department of Modern European Languages National University of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine

Summary

The article describes the main approaches to the definition and purpose of teaching English for Specific purposes by students of economic specialties. Different forms of work are described at different stages of studying English. The problems are highlighted and the factors that determine the peculiarities of teaching and studying by the students of professionally oriented vocabulary and features of its translation are determined.

Key words: English for special purposes (ESP), language training, terminology translation, content of teaching methodology, foreign language competences, professional communication.

Пернарівська Т.П. Англійська мова для спеціальних цілей: теоретичний та практичний аспект

Анотація. У статті висвітлено основні підходи до визначення та мети навчання англійської мови для спеціальних цілей студентів економічних спеціальностей. Описані різні форми роботи на різних стадіях вивчення англійської мови. Виділено проблеми та визначено фактори, які зумовлюють особливості навчання і вивчення студентами професійно-орієнтованої лексики й особливостей її перекладу. english student learning

Ключові слова: англійська мова для спеціальних цілей, мовна підготовка, переклад термінів, зміст та методика викладання, іншомовні компетенції, професійне спілкування.

Пернаровская Т.П. Английский язык для специальных целей: теоретический и практический аспект

Аннотация. В статье отражены основные подходы к определению и цели обучения английскому языку для специальных целей студентов экономических специальностей. Описаны различные формы работы на разных стадиях изучения английского языка. выделены проблемы и определены факторы, которые предопределяют особенности обучения и изучения студентами профессионально-ориентированной лексики и особенностей ее перевода.

Ключевые слова: английский язык для специальных целей, языковая подготовка, перевод терминов, содержание и методика преподавания, иноязычные компетенции, профессиональное общение.

Formulation of the problem. English now serves as the language of international communication in all spheres of life, as the rapid development of international relations requires coordinated cooperation of specialists from different fields. Recently, the increasing importance of the professional qualities of high school graduates is taken to be the ability freely communicate in a foreign language professional activities. The reasons for this state are: a profound reform of society, which is becoming increasingly open to the outside world. In this regard, the objective reality of the present is the wide development of international contacts with representatives of foreign states.

Research analysis. The purpose of studying English for special purposes (in the curriculum of domestic higher educational institutions, this educational discipline is called "Foreign language of professional communication / direction") is of students of the system of necessary knowledge, skills and abilities in order adequately apply them in professional activity. It is the purpose of studying the discipline to be the determining factor in the formation of its content. In the countries of Europe and the USA, the process of determining the purpose of the training course is inextricably linked with the analysis of students' needs and the target situation. Analysis of the target situation makes it possible to systematize the needs of students, which should be at the center of the process of forming the content of the discipline. Problems of the development of analysis of educational needs are covered in the writings of S. Benesch, R. Jordan, R. West et al. Studies of T. Hutchinson, A. Waters, T. Dudley-Evans, M. J. St John and others were devoted to the formation of the content of English language teaching for special purposes. Approaches to the definition of the purpose of teaching English for special purposes were substantiated by A. Chambers, J. Mun- by, et al. The analysis of the genres of educational texts is devoted to the works of J. Swales, J. Allen, H. Widdowson, M. Phillips,

C. Shettlesworth, W. Hьllen and others. The results of the analysis of the grammatical features of English-language professional texts are illustrated in Ch. Barber, J. Ewer, G. Latorre, E. Hughes- Davies, A. Herbert.

Retrospective study of the development of educational needs during the 70 90s of the XX century. made by R. West He singled out the dominant trends [14]:

1) analysis according to the target situation;

2) analysis of subjective needs;

3) analysis of communicative strategies;

4) analysis of training resources.

Basic material presentation. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Programs are designed for students who want to improve their English in a certain professional field of study normally taught at university. Different from pre-academic and university ESL programs, which teach basic academic skills for all fields of study, ESP Programs teach the English needed in specific academic subjects, such as in Economics or Psychology. For example, a student who hopes to study Economics and Finance in the future would take an ESP class entitled "English for Economics and Finance"; and a future psychology student would choose the ESP class "English for Psychology". English for Specific Purposes is a learner-centered approach to teaching English that focuses on developing communicative competence in a specific area such as: accounting, aviation, business, IT, teaching, engineering, medicine and so on. Learners are also exposed to English workplace cultural terminologies and real world English skills practice.

Students of non ESP classes focus more on syllabus contents and get less time to concentrate on expanding their knowledge outside syllabus. They concentrate more on learning answers to the questions provided to them by their teachers and grammar exercises done in the class. The obvious result is though they score very high in their subject but when it comes to using the knowledge they are complete failure. They lack appropriate words to convey their message in their work place.

A teacher that already has experience in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) can exploit his/her background in language teaching. He/She should recognize the ways in which teaching skills can be. A Comparative Study of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English as a Second Language (ESL) Programs International adapted for the teaching of English for Specific Purposes. Moreover, one will need to look for content specialists for help in designing appropriate lessons in the subject matter field she is teaching. As an ESP teacher, we must play many roles. We may be asked to organize courses, to set learning objectives, to establish a positive learning environment in the classroom, and to evaluate students' progress.

ECP teachers should use visual displays (i.e. graphs, charts, photos) in the lessons and assignments to support the oral or written message. Visual / graphic organizers should be used before presenting a reading passage. The provision of additional contextual information in the form of a visual should make the comprehension task easier. A teacher can use these visual aids:

1) Flow Charts;

2) Maps, Charts;

3) Graphs, Pictures;

4) Mapping;

5) Charts;

6) Computer / Software;

7) Videos Films;

8) CD-ROM Demonstrations;

9) Labeling for delivering meaningful information.

Teachers may also use interactive strategies such as: Peer Buddy; Small Group Activities; Pairs and Threes; Think / Pair / Share; Cooperative Learning (Group Reports / Projects); Panel Discussions / Debate; Choral Reading / Read Around Groups (RAG) Field Trips; Role Play; Games.

The teacher directs the students in activities to check their prior knowledge of the subject, set the purpose for reading, and become acquainted with new vocabulary and concepts. At this stage, the students may also predict the content. Students then read small sections silently, while keeping their predictions and purposes for reading in mind. They read critically. After reading, the students think about what they read. They revise predictions or prove them. Follow-up activities help students expand, summarize, and restate their ideas.

What is the role of the learner and what is the task he/she faces? The learners come to the ESP class with a specific interest for learning, subject matter knowledge, and well-built adult learning strategies. They are in charge of developing English language skills to reflect their native-language knowledge and skills. They have opportunities to understand and work with language in a context that they comprehend and find interesting. In this view, ESP is a powerful means for such opportunities.

Exploring the teaching methodology of modern textbooks, it should be noted that there are exercises in it exceptionally training and in the most cases monotonous, where the stereotypical formulation dominates and artificial lexical filling, sometimes even not related to text material. In view of this, teachers-methodists in the development of lexical exercises need to pay attention to the fact that the subject learning should be concepts and expressions that make up the language of this specialty should develop them. ESP concentrates more on language in context than on teaching grammar and language structures. It covers subjects varying from accounting or computer science to tourism and business management. The ESP focal point is that English is not taught as a subject separated from the students' real world (or wishes); instead, it is integrated into a subject matter area important to the learnersThe acquisition of a special vocabulary should focus on exercises whose purpose is to learn the basics word formation, acquaint with the system of synonyms and antonyms, develop a linguistic guess based on international vocabulary and elements of word formation, to establish associative ties on the basis of native language [3].

Exercise with problem load developing the ability to recognize lexical units for formal signs, to quickly find structural and semantic differences between foreign and native languages, forcing students actively search for independent conclusions, awareness and perseverance remembering. When developing methodological materials, a lot of attention should be paid to the selection expressions and quotations, which are very often used, which, on the one hand, illustrate the features of grammar, and another, extend the general cultural outlook of students and attract them to global knowledge values of civilization. Mastering students with lexical material of a foreign language from a specialty requires a teacher to develop dictionaries-minima, based on the most commonly used in special texts of general scientific and special-scientific formations "blanks" necessary for accurate and accurate transmission of educational and scientific information. Despite this, lately, on the importance of oral speech reading value remains very important, therefore this type of speech activity allows the student not only to draw information, but also creates means of mastering verbal and written foreign language.

Teaching a foreign language in non-philology specialties requires the focus of attention and efforts to read modern literature on the specialty. Purposeful reading is a prerequisite for gaining students for a relatively short time of sufficient level of communicative competence in professional activity. The professional orientation in reading learning reflects not only the subject matter texts as well as the nature of text exercises, which is the basis for the implementation of educational activities.

Methodical materials from the study of foreign languages should be based on text exercises that are problematic, contain questions that the textbook does not have a ready answer. This creates a problem situation. That is why tutors of higher educational institutions should understand this complex and ambiguous process that requires very diligent and laborious work. Each specialty is unique and and therefore has its own specific vocavulary.

Learning or reading texts in a foreign language does not meet the current requirements of staff professional training.Tutors must motivate their students.

The influence on the students' motivation ic continuous process of teaching foreign texts the language of narrow-sector topics (for example, biology texts for students specializing in "biology" [5, p. 8]). However, in the initial stages of teaching English for special purposes, it was not about the use of authentic texts in the learning process.

Educational editions, in particular A. Herbert, were created during the process of making educational editions from general course of foreign language own texts for the purpose of studying students of certain features of the use of foreign language [4]. This tradition continued in the era of discourse analysis. J. Allen and H. Widdowson advocated the creation of texts by the authors of educational publications, arguing their position as an opportunity to avoid syntactic complexity and accentuating on particularly valuable communicative language models [2]. At the same time, M. Phillips and C. Shettles emphasize on the usage of authentic texts in the learning process,s will give students the opportunity to feel the peculiarity of the "natural" use of a foreign language, will motivate them to study and will facilitate the formation of their communicative skills [11].

T. Hutchinson and A. Waters believe that in the process of teaching English for special purposes it is impossible to speak the language of authentic text [5, p. 159].

In modern conditions, at different stages of studying English for special purposes, depending on the purpose of the training, different types of professional texts are used, the most common of which are texts made according to the target situation; texts of stimulation of a certain type student activity; texts that illustrate certain discursive models. Scientists agree, that authentic texts or texts that are given an authentic form more motivate students before learning and point out that the importance of the text is not limited to the text itself, but to the role of which must play this text in the process of learning [5, p. 159]. Based on this statement in the process of structuring the content of the English language course for special purposes, the selection of appropriate teaching methods, teaching methodological support, it is necessary to choose the types of texts that are most relevant to the goals and objectives of the course defined on based on the analysis of the needs of students according to the target situation.

Students will acquire English as they work with materials which they find interesting and relevant and which they can use in their professional work or further studies. Learners in the ESP classes are generally aware of the purposes for which they will need to use English. Knowledge of the subject area enables the students to identify a real context for the vocabulary and structures of the ESP classroom. They are constantly expanding vocabulary, becoming more fluent in their fields, and adjusting their linguistic behavior to new situations or new roles. ESP students can exploit these innate competencies in learning English.

The specialization "finance and banking" is one of the areas in demand today, therefore the issues of training future specialists in this field seem to be particularly relevant.

The United States and Great Britain are leaders of the global financial markets that were the founders if many areas of economic thought and pioneers in the emergence of the most advanced financial instruments, mechanisms and products.

Texts of the financial and credit ESP belong to the official business functional style, which today incorporates more and more features of a journalistic and even literary style. Despite the frequent uniformity of phrases due to the specifics of financial documents, reports and presentations use elements of literary texts, and English texts are much more imaginative and expressive than Ukrainian ones. Attract the reader is a significant part in teaching professionally oriented translation. In this area, the ability to choose not only lexical-grammatical, but also stylistic means to achieve the idiomatic nature of the translation is given.

Preparing the ESP class materials, teachers should pay special attention to lexical units, which are distinguished by the highest frequency in the texts of this profile. Students can be offered to list such lexical units and their equivalents in Ukrainian and English with examples of contextual use, which they will constantly replenish.

For example, "structure" - structure, mix, composition, breakdown, basket;

profit structure - revenue mix, balance sheet composition;

loan portfolio structure - loan book breakdown;

funding structure - financing basket;

"High" - ample, robust, solid, sound, high: high capitalization - solid capitalization, high liquidity, excellent liquidity position, high profitability - robust / strong / sound profitability.

Students can also compile thematic lists of epithets used, for example, to characterize the market situation: the dull, languishing, light, negligible, quiet, slow, sluggish, thin, weak, volatile market situation - bumpy, choppy, erratic, hesitant, mixed, uncertain, volatile, lively market situation - brisk, heavy, hectic, extremely busy conjuncture - frantic, frenetic, frenzied.

These kinds of exercises will help students master the appropriate skills of working with texts and realize the importance of using stylistic resources when translating. In addition, such lists of frequency lexical units can form the basis of a thematic glossary that students can compile and expand on their own. As a control task it is possible to offer students not only to independently carry out the translation of the text, but also to correct its finished version in order to achieve the greatest stylistic conformity. Below is an example of this type of exercise.

The phrase in Ukrainian: Упродовж тривалого періоду часу ми демонстрируем більш високий рівень капіталізації, ніж наші конкуренти.

The proposed translation option: For a long time, we have demonstrated a higher level of capitalization than our competitors.

Corrected translation: Historically, our capitalization has proven to be superior to our peers.

Of course, students will be offered several translation options, which give the teacher an opportunity to later conduct their joint discussion and select the most successful among them. The proposed variants of control and training exercises imply not only individual, but also group work of students, which significantly increases the efficiency of the presentation and assimilation of the material.

Thus, a multidimensional approach to teaching translation in the field of professional communication allows future specialists not only master specialized terminology consciously in a particular subject area, without resorting to mechanical memorization, but also to acquire practical skills in using the stylistic tools necessary for translation relevant types of texts, as well as learn to make thematic glossaries in the relevant subject area.

Conclusions and prospects for further researches. Teachers nowadays, however, are much more aware of the importance of needs analysis, and certainly materials writers think very carefully about the goals of learners at all stages of materials production. Perhaps this demonstrates the influence that the ESP approach has had on English teaching in general.

ESP programs focus on developing communicative competence in a specific field, such as aviation, business or technology. Some course prepares students for various academic programs like English for science and technology. An ESP program is therefore built on an assessment of purposes, needs and the functions for which English is required. That's students study English not because they are interested in the English language (or English language culture) as such but because they need English for study or work purposes. At the end, we want say that ESP more and more involves specialist language (especial terminology) and content to improve professional work.

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