Badalova L.Kh.
Senior lecturer, English language teacher, Karshi Engineering-Economic Institute, c. Karshi, Uzbekistan
UTILIZATION OF ENGINEERING VIDEO MATERIALS
Abstract
ESP teachers are first and foremost teachers of English and their role is not only to instruct the students in English but also enable them to develop and perform their language skills within an engineering context. In teaching English for specific purposes, variety of materials and techniques, activities are needed to use in order to reflect target needs of technical English learners. Thus, in designing a curriculum, ESP practitioner uses video materials because of involving students acquiring engineering English in better way. One of the target issues in classes is how to acquire technical English which is very complicated to follow and study. In such case, the utilization of video materials gives much knowledge and experience to students as well as teachers.
This paper highlights effectiveness of utilization of video materials in ESP classes, consequently, how it reflects on target needs of students.
Keywords: ESP teacher, engineering context, video materials, ESP classes
Introduction
The spread of globalization confirms the fact that English has become the language of international communication as more and more people are using English in a growing number of occupational contexts, such as engineering. Nowadays we assist at continuous technological changes that require more science oriented engineers able to perform professional communication.
Consequently the primary goal of any ESP courses for engineers is to teach professional communicative competence, more exactly to communicate in English according to the situation, purpose, and specific roles of the participants. ESP courses are meant to prepare specialists able to use the English language as the main professional communication means in their future jobs and in real-life situations. A great majority of ESP students learn the language and its grammar for their vocational purposes. So as to make them attain more success in their academic, vocational and personal life, we can teach grammar in context and with videos (Warschauer & Meskill, 2000).
However, these difficulties should be viewed as challenges that the ESP teacher could turn into advantages when designing teaching materials, an activity that has to follow two directions: the teacher has to select the topics according to needs of students and he has to follow certain criteria and steps in the general process of lesson design. Thus the general process of materials design should start from the student and should have as the outcome a student that is fully equipped in order to meet the demands of the working environment in the future prospective. Furthermore, using video materials in ESP classes may involve students’ active performance and enable them to act as instructed or stated in video materials, it not only gives learners how to use English but also teaches how to do English correctly in oral and written contexts.
Effective sides of visual technique
English fluently, but also on the ability to communicate in a way which will be recognized and appreciated by their future counterparts in the international working environment. Both students and specialists want their English language learning to be targeted to this aim and they often also want their success in this to be measured using an internationally recognized benchmark. This brings into question the effectiveness of the available ESP textbooks, namely to what extent they match students’ needs and how efficient they are in preparing the students and the specialists to communicate in authentic working environments.
According to Dudley Evans and St. John, 1998 ESP is designed to reflect the needs of the learners, it makes use of the methodology and activities of the disciplines it serves and is centered on the language, skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities. Another important characteristic of ESP is to answer to the changing political, economic and social trends and this flexibility requires its permanent adaptation to different contexts. The advantages of using audiovisual products in language teaching have been acknowledged in several studies. These show how exposure to visual and aural elements in films helps learners to widen vocabulary, especially, technical which is difficult to learn, even pronounce (cf. Kaiser, 2011; Sherman, 2003; Webb & Rodgers, 2009), to learn certain pragmatic strategies in conversation, and to develop oral skills in general (Dikilitas & Duvenci, 2009).
But, more importantly, it also gives students the chance to “see the ‘language in use’” (Harmer, 2007: 308). This allows them to see how paralinguistic elements are used in different contexts and cultures, thus also broadening their intercultural communication competence, and to listen to various accents. In addition, it helps them become more aware of non-verbal cues (e.g., gestures, facial expression, gaze direction, physical proximity, as well as the use of pauses and intonation patterns) and of how they contribute to integrating or supporting the verbal message.
Indeed, in teaching contexts, video material, particularly, documentary film has been described as “an authentic source material (that is created for native speakers and not learners of the language)”, several recent studies have demonstrated the similarities between film language and spontaneous face-to-face conversation, in terms of authenticity and spontaneity (Bonsignori, 2013; Forchini, 2012; Kozloff, 2000). The same holds for TV dialogue (cf. Quaglio, 2009), which is a subtype of “scripted/constructed dialogue” written to sound natural and believable (Bednarek, 2010: 63). It features specific narrative and semiotic elements that are not totally remote from those characterizing films, but which are limited by broadcasting time and modality. Moreover, it is not always easy to find available material retrieved from spontaneous conversation in specialized contexts to be used in the ESP class.
Even textbooks may not be enough, as in the case of medical communication textbooks compared to which spoken language shows a great amount of deviation (Nagy, 2010). This is why relying on films, the quintessence of multimodal products (Bateman, 2013), or TV series to teach English in specialized settings can be an effective solution. In other domains, such as law, the language of films and TV shows has proved to share several features with real communication in some contexts.
Reflection target needs
In this respect, a widespread multimedia tool that has both visual and audio content is video. It is possible to state the advantages of videos via using the terms diversity, facilities and creativity. Videos can be useful particularly to create learner curiosity and arouse interest as well as it may reflect their target needs. Zhu (2012) focuses on the diversity feature of videos. Video appeals to different senses via. sound, image, color, shape (p 136) at the same time. This variety is of great significance in terms of addressing different learners and learning styles. Besides image and sound, video also offers facilities (Pujola, 2002, p. 235), which are play controls, transcripts, subtitles and captions. Furthermore, technology brings flexibility and choice to education (Crawford, 2002). Teachers have the freedom to create their own videos using different multimedia tools such as cameras, mobile phones, websites and animation software in Power point program. Along with these, videos can be of vital help in contextualizing the language items. On the other hand, there are also cautious approaches to multimedia tools. In this context, the issues that attract notice are purpose and selection of videos, and nature of language. Visual aids can promote students perceiving subject matter in FL as well as it reflects target needs of them.
Conclusion
Throughout the study, we observed that the usage of the videos for ESP teaching motivated the students to take part in the lessons. Furthermore, they began to watch the videos through social software asking the teacher to upload new videos for self study purposes. Language educators now seek not only (or even principally) to teach students language with the help of video materials. This is accomplished through creating opportunities for authentic and meaningful interaction both within and outside the classroom, and providing students the tools for their own social, cultural, and linguistic exploration (Warschauer & Meskill, 2000).
The ESP courses are a priority in technical universities due to the dynamic of activities more complex day by day. The students in technical faculties should know that it is not enough to have professional knowledge in a certain field. In many cases communication is the key for success or failure. As specialists, they need to be able to deal with a variety of subjects, to communicate, to exchange or share information with other specialists from different countries. Dealing with a variety of subjects they have to use English as a primary tool and perform well in negotiating contracts, explaining technological developments and new products, attending professional events etc. Moreover, video materials play important role to challenge learners perceiving technical language better.
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