Innovating Foreign Language Teaching at University Studies: Transition to Academic Language Needs and Material Selection
Author(s):
Virginija Tuomaitė (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments
Format:
Poster

Session Information

20 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:
2015-09-09
12:30-14:00
Room:
Poster Area
Chair:

Contribution

One of the key priorities in EU documents ‘Europe 2020’ (‘E 2020’), ‘Education and Training 2020’ (‘ET 2020’), other EU youth strategy documents is mobile youth highly educated and open to communication, fully prepared for academic and professional career, and having experience of studies and work in foreign universities and companies. The emphasis of achieving this aim lies on the need to improve the quality of studies in universities, in particular, academic excellence and equal opportunities. A high quality contemporary university requires the competence that enables a student to understand lectures on the subject in a foreign language, to participate in academic discussions in the European Higher Education area, to study in various joint programmes at Lithuanian and foreign universities, to participate in student mobility exchange programmes and international projects, to feel confidence and self-esteem in any academic and professional foreign language discourse. Thus, the development of academic foreign language competence is receiving more and more increasing attention in the contemporary university.

English, that has long become a lingua franca in the academic and professional discourse, is a compulsory subject for all the students at Vytautas Magnus university (VMU). The development of academic English communicative competence of the students with different linguistic competence level and no previous experience of academic language learning in secondary school and integration of academic context into the language subject programmes has become a core need for both students and teachers. The selection and correct employment of the textbook and other teaching material to satisfy the needs of academic language competence development is quite a challenge for a language teacher as regards necessary academic context and language skills development. 

This study is aimed at:

 (1) finding out students’ academic language needs and competence at levels B1 and B2 and rating of its importance from students’ and teachers’ point of view, and

(2) investigating how the selected and employed textbook satisfies their needs from the students’ and teachers’ point of view.

The methods of qualitative and quantitative research have been applied to achieve the aims of the study.

The paper will present the analysis of the findings obtained from the questionnaire and interviews completed by students and teachers, and the conclusions regarding the selection and employment of the textbook to meet the students’ needs of academic English competence development.

Method

Methodologically the research is based on the conceptions of modern educational theories such as holism, humanism, pragmatism, progressivism and constructivism, that promote modern personality development aims; the main teaching/learning principles; curriculum development principles; the principles of definition for the study results, outcomes, competencies, knowledge, skills, and abilities in the context of educational paradigm transitions that form the conceptual foundation for the lifelong learning paradigm. The research methods employed have been as follows: (1) document analysis aimed at the analysis of EU and Lithuanian education and foreign language policy documents to highlight the main tendencies and trends, and to develop the research instrument on the basis of the results of this analysis; (2) scientific literature analysis aimed at the definition of the main research concepts, scientific justification of the research purpose, and the development of the research instrument; (3) written questionnaire surveys and interviews aimed at achieving the empirical research objectives; (4) statistical data analysis. The data was processed and statistical analysis was performed by operating the programmes of SPSS 13.01 and MS Excel (MS operational system). The methods of descriptive statistics, non-parametric and parametric criteria were employed for the analysis and discussion of the empirical research results.

Expected Outcomes

The findings of the study reveal the needs for foreign language teaching curriculum innovation regarding transition to academic language teaching and material employment from the point of view of both the students and the teachers. The findings of this study may offer insights for those involved in educational administrations, syllabus design, curriculum planning, and materials development. at the level of institution. Different sections of the textbooks can be modified and supplied with additional teaching materials by the subject content developers and providers at the institution in order to match national and institutional discourse. The teachers may also get insights from the findings and employ different strategies to compensate for the weak points of the textbook. The findings of this study offer convincing evidence that the English language textbook for university studies ‘Cambridge Academic English’ that is currently taught at VMU does not fully meet both the students and the teachers’ expectations. The results are expected to expand the existing research in the area of the textbook evaluation and additional material employment according to the needs of the students and recommendations of the teachers. However, in order to be able to make more sound judgments about different characteristics of the textbook and its employment possibilities, more research of this kind needs to be conducted.

References

Cunningsworth, A. (1995). Choosing your coursebook. Oxford: Heinmann. Daoud, A. & Celce-Murcia, M. (1979). Selecting and evaluating a textbook. In M. Celce-Murcia and L. McIntosh (Eds.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 302-307).Cambridge, MA: Newbury House Publishers. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2013. Education and Training in Europe 2020: Responses from the EU Member States. Eurydice Report. Brussels: Eurydice. http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/thematic_reports/163EN.pdf European Commission: Europe 2020 Strategy. http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm Ellis, R. (1997). The empirical evaluation of language teaching materials. ELT Journal, 51(1), 36-42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/51.1.36 Jahangard, A. (2007). Evaluation of EFL materials taught at Iranian public high schools. ELT Journal, 9 (2), 130-150. Lamie, J. M. (1999). Making the textbook more communicative. The Internal TESL Journal, 5(1). www.iteslj.org. Littlejohn, A. (2011). The analysis of language teaching materials: Inside the Trojan Horse. In B. Tomlinson (2011), Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd edn). Cambridge University Press. Mackey, A. & Gass, S.M. (2005). Second language research: methodology and design. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Matthews, A. (1985). Choosing the best available textbook. In A. Matthews, M. Spratt, and L. Dangerfield (eds.) At the chalkface. London: Edward Arnold, 202-206. McDonough, J. & Shaw,C. (2003). Materials and methods in ELT: A teacher's guide. (2nd edn). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Miekley, J. (2005) ESL textbook evaluation checklist. The Reading Matrix. 5.2, 101-109. http://www.readingmatrix.com/reading_projects/miekley/project.pdf Rahimpour, M., Hashemi , R. (2011). Textbook Selection and Evaluation in EFL Context. World Journal of Education. Vol. 1, No. 2. Razmjoo, S.A. (2007). High schools or private institutes textbooks? Which fulfill communicative language teaching principles in the Iranian context? Asian EFL Journal, 9(4). 126-140. Roberts, J.T. (1996). Demystifying materials evaluation. System, 24.3, 375-389. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0346-251X(96)00029-2 Sarhady, T. (2009). A critical approach to English material development and language planning in Iran. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 35(2), 143-153. Sheldon, L. E. (1988). Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials. ELT Journal, 42.4, 237–246. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/42.4.237 Shannon, P (2010). Textbook Development and Selection. International Encyclopedia of Education (Third Edition), Tomlinson, B. (2001). Materials development. In R. Carter, & D. Nunan (Ed.), The Cambridge guide to teaching. English to speakers of other languages (pp. 66-71). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667206.010

Author Information

Virginija Tuomaitė (presenting / submitting)
Vytautas Magnus University
Kaunas

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