TESOL EVONLINE 2005 - Jan 17-Feb 26
Making the Transition from ESL to ESP

Meet the Participants in this ESL2ESP EVOline 2005 Session

Carol Pineiro

 

My name is Carol Pineiro, and I teach at Boston University. I taught Business English for 10 years, Science and Tecnology for 5 years (to ITAs), and now Medical English in on-ground courses with an online one starting this summer. I'm interested in the phenomenon of foreign nurses coming to the US and trying to improve their English skills in order to work here. What kind of courses are being designed for them? I'm also wondering if anyone in this group has taught an online course in Medical English so I know what to expect this summer. Nice to meet you all and be part of the group.
Carol Pineiro
Boston University

Irina

I am Irina from Ukraine. I work as a senior lecturer at the FLD of the National Mining University in Dnipropetrovsk. I am teaching ESP or better to say EAP for the students of different specialism areas (Engineering, Computer Sciences and IT.Some years ago these students were taught simply EFL or General English with the elements of Business Basics. I have the previous experience working as an engineer responsible for information search and their translation for the needs of the Department and as a Translator at the Patent Office, that is why I think I am aware of the needs of future engineers in Ukraine, where and what for they will use English. The only question is HOW to teach students? Personally I am using task-based learning centred approach in teaching/learning promoting learners autonomy, but many teachers think that topic/ notion- oriented approach is the only appropriate one. Any comments?
Here the question appear: is it possible for non-native teacher of English teach specific topics not being an expert in the field? What approaches do you use while teaching ESP/EAP? What levels are your students? Are they native speakers? I am interested in teaching EFL non-native students by non-native teacher.Will be very greatful if you share your experience and ideas!

Kris Hiller

My name is Kris Hiller, and I work for the University of California, Riverside. I taught ESL at our extension center in Riverside for awhile, but I moved into administration about 2 years ago. Before I started with UCR, I taught at a few
different places in the US and in Russia. In addition to a lot of general ESL/EFL courses, I have taught EAP and some business English. The project I am currently involved in is a new center in Beijing. We have a new ITA training program that we are getting ready to pilot, and we are designingseveral ESP programs for airline employees and the hospitality industry. We are also interested in English for medical personnel (probably hospital adminstrators) and law enforcement. Some of this is new territory both for me and for our Internationsl Education Programs at UCR, so I'm looking forward to earning from your experiences.
Kristin E. Hiller
Director, Beijing International Education Center
University of California, Riverside

Aiden Yeh

Aiden Yeh is a Ph.D Candidate at the University of Birmingham. She is a Lecturer at Wen Zao Ursuline College of Languages, Taiwan (http://www.wtuc.edu.tw/version/english/new2/).

 

Mohammad Alavi

I received my Ph.D. From Lancaster University in UK. My main
interest is Language Testing. My exposure to ESP goes back to 80s
when I was involved in teaching general and technical English to
studentends of science and technology.
Having completed four projects in Needs Analyses of undergraduate
and postgraguate studnets of science and technology in Iran, I
started to develop materials based on our finindings to meet the
needs of our students.
I hope I am able to have some sort of contribution to the group.
Kind regards,

Karen García

 I am Karen García, living in Western Massachusetts and originally from Puerto
Rico. My practice as a Social Scientist has lead me to an on-line environment
full of language teachers, so I am learning about that. That is to say, I need
definitions about terms (such as ESL and ESP, especially since for me the latter
means Extra Sensory Perception!).
Since I am always inquiring about words and their meaning, I think that what
I've been doing with teaching teachers about the use of the internet is related
to this workshop about transitioning into language for special purposes. Let
me run it by you.
I would like to develop the concept offered at http://predu.tripod.com during
the next 6 weeks and hopefully also activate the discussion started at the
OpenSourcED Moodle http://moodle.ntjcpa.edu.tw/ under the course: Using the
Internet for Educational Purposes. Please feel free to enter and help out with
ideas about how to construct a module on "All you need to know of English
language to be able to use the Internet for teaching". That should be
considered an English for Special Purposes task… isn't it?

Evan Frendo

 

 

 

Evan Frendo, (Singapore)

I've been involved in business English / ESP for just over ten
years; before that I worked as a mechanical engineer. Most of my
work has been with companies in Germany, and has been divided
between training, mostly in-company, and materials writing. I have
an LCCI Dip in Teaching English for Business from London Guildhall,
and an MSc in TESP from Aston University. I am currently doing a
part time EdD focussing on small talk in Intercultural Business
Communication, as well as various material writing projects. I am
also fairly active in IATEFL, and hold the posts of Honorary
Secretary and BESIG Coordinator.
One area of interest for me at the moment is the issue of ethics in
BE / ESP teaching. For example, we spend lot of time gathering
information about our students and their environments, but I'm not
sure that all of us are particulary ethical about how we handle the
data. Do we tell our students exactly how the data will be used, for
example? Do we have procedures in place to ensure confidentiality
and privacy? But anyway, I digress. Perhap these issues will come up some time in
the next few weeks. Looking forward to it.

Nergiz

  

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