Constructivism in ESP Teaching at Ukrainian Universities
Дата
2018
Назва журналу
Номер ISSN
Назва тому
Видавець
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Анотація
It is well known that every type of English for specific purposes (ESP) course is based on general English, but in each type, there is a specific notional and lexical part that characterizes only this given ESP variety, and goes beyond the general English boundaries (Robinson, 1991). In actuality, teaching and learning ESP is a specific part of the basis of the commonality to all varieties of ESP and embedded within general English.
Hence, ESP learning can be deemed efficient only after students have already acquired a high level of general English—not lower than intermediate, or level B2 according to the Council of Europe’s (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Language. Otherwise, students will have to continue learning general English in their ESP course to compensate for their prior deficiencies in general English knowledge. This is counterproductive because, when students start their ESP course on a sound and solid basis of general English, their efforts can be concen- trated on specifics of ESP‐based professional communication (i.e., what the course in ESP is actually designed for). Moreover, in such a case, the ESP course can be designed in a constructivist manner, so that students themselves construct their own target language professional communication skills for use in their professional interaction. “Self‐constructing” one’s own knowledge and communication skills is achieved through learning activities that model the extra‐linguistic reality which is the reason the target language is being learned. Thanks to such modeling, target communication skills are, from the very beginning, developed to serve professional communication and expand on the information base of such communication.
This entry discusses the theoretical and practical ways of implementing.