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Don't walk in front of me,
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Looking back at my first
experience as a teacher and comparing it with my present attitude, I see considerable
change. There is, however, one aspect that has prevailed: my belief that human and
affective factors are fundamental to the teaching/learning process. And if this is true
for general EFL programs, it is still more relevant for the teaching of ESP/EAP. I would
like to be able to motivate science students so that they could take real ownership of
English instead of simply using the language as a tool for their present or future careers
(suggested by Gardner and Lambert's concept of instrumental motivation).
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With this view, it was
decided at our faculty that a teacher should be appointed each year to coordinate work in
general and establish contacts between students and teachers. Moreover, the teacher in
charge of the first year, apart from the above-mentioned duties, is also supposed to
become familiar with the profile of each student, passing this information on to other
colleagues. I have been responsible for this task for the last three years. This means
that when students enter our program, we interview them to obtain information about their
expectations, and their individual preferences.
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Their answers to the
questions about preferences have been used in planning special lessons which differ
radically from the usual EAP lessons.
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It has always been our
belief that motivation is the key word for almost everything in life. It is the first step
towards reaching our goals, in overcoming our difficulties and in fulfilling our
responsibilities.
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We are inclined to say
that, as teachers, our very first objective is to help each student identify and develop
his/her own motivations. Thus, the interviews were very useful, because they helped us to
plan a different kind of lesson that would be responsive to the students' preferences.
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This one in particular was
planned for Marco, a 21-year-old student, born in Angola, who stressed his preference for
the reading and writing of poetry. For Marco, poetry would be the motivating medium.
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Let me describe each step
of the lesson planned with Marco in mind:
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1. Warm Up Phase:
During this first stage of the lesson the main thrust was to empower the learners to
express personal feelings and attitudes about poetry. Marco was the first student to be
questioned, but soon the whole class engaged in the conversation.
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The second move within
this phase involved giving the class photographs and short bibliographies of well-known
poets.
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2. Group Work:
Students were asked to get together in three groups and each group was given a different
poem to read and comment on. To help students get started, I asked the three groups a few
general questions about the poems and then I told the groups to go on asking each other
questions in the same way.
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Some of the students'
questions were written on the board for error correction and to consolidate the structure
of Wh- questions.
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3. Structural
Analysis: From the three poems, an English translation of one by Albert Camus was
chosen. It was analyzed in terms of structure, moving the class focus from thematic
discussion to linguistic analysis. To achieve this, students were shown a transparency of
the poem on the OHP. They were asked to look at the verse and identify verb forms,
prepositions and any other structural aspect that might catch their attention. Some
students recognized the imperative forms, one referred to the use of the modal
"may," and Marco isolated the three prepositions of place. Some of the students
were talking in Portuguese and some of the answers were not in very good English, but the
fact is that the students themselves did all the work. I use the "consciousness
raising strategies," advocated by Rutherford and Smith to get the students to think
about structure.
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4. Controlled
Production Stage: Guided, controlled production involves adding a few lines to the
poem after having been given some key words, e.g.:
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give orders /ready to
accept
give advice /may / hear
sit /beside /forget /the world /be/friend
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The students' versions
were written on the board for exchanging ideas and correction.
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5. Transfer
Activity: Industrial explosives-their main characteristics, types, handling
problems and different uses- comprised one thematic area of our EAP course. For this
reason, we thought it might be a good opportunity to use the imperative constructions and
prepositions of place in Camus' poem to consolidate the EAP vocabulary of that unit and
the grammatical structures of the poem. Two examples were provided to stimulate the class
and help them retrieve what they had already studied about that topic, e.g.:
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- Be careful when transporting explosives from one place to another.
- You must place the charges in the holes carefully. In pairs,
students were left to go on writing sentences as in the example.
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Transfer activities are,
in our opinion, one of the most interesting features of teaching a foreign language. They
help students recognize that ESP/EAP is not a world apart, but a kind of interaction that
may contribute to the development of other aspects of communication.
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6. Homework:
To finish the lesson the students were asked to write a poem for homework. Looking at
their faces, I realized that many were not going to do it, but Marco did; he, himself,
acknowledged that he was surprised at having been able to express his ideas in English.
The poem had nothing to do with either the themes or the structures discussed during the
lesson, but it reflected the strong link that has been created among the student, the
teacher, and the language.
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To sum up, let me stress
six key concepts: interviews,student profiles, motivation, poetry, transfer activities
, and creativity . The interviews led to the definition of individual profiles
which facilitated the task of motivation , leading us, this time, towards poetry
. The structural aspect of the poem analyzed suggested the transfer to one of the
ESP/EAP-specific topic areas and provided an opportunity for creativity, perhaps one of
the most difficult goals to obtain in the learning process as a whole. But this goal was
achieved in the following lesson when Marco read his poem to the class:
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Strange
days have found us. Strange days have found our traces. They are going to destroy our
casual joys. We must go on planning, Or find a new town
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Gilda Pimenta has taught EAP at the University of Porto for
the last 16 years. She is co-editor of three books for the teaching of English. |
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Return |
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- Gardner, R. and W. Lambert. 1972. Attitudes and motivation in
second-language learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House
- Littlewood, W. 1984. Foreign and second language learning.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Prabhu, N. S. 1987. Second language pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
- Rutherford, W. and M. S. Smith. 1987. Grammar and second language
teaching. New York: Newbury House Publishers.
- Skelton, J. and G. Kershaw. 1980. Syllabus designs. MA course
materials. English Language Institute, University of Surrey.
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