Revisiting the foundations of communicative LSP. All quiet on the teaching front?

1. Revisiting the foundations of communicative LSP. All quiet on the teaching front? Dr Felicitas M. Starr-Egger Director of Language Studies

2. Communicative Language Teaching • Hymes (1972) ‘communicative competence’ (‘competence dependent on both [tacit] knowledge and [ability for] use’) • Widdowson (1978) “… whole complex business of communication and the practical consequences of adopting it as a teaching aim” • Canale & Swain (1980) “grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic” • Bachmann & Palmer (1996) “communicative ability = language knowledge and strategic competence” • Douglas and Chapelle (2001) “grammatical, textual, functional and sociolinguistic knowledge”

3. LSP • Gollin-Kies, Hall and Moore (2015) “despite the massive amount of research energy spent over the years on trying to describe what language is and how it works, there is no consensus and there are many competing theories • Douglas (2000) criticism of view that “specific purpose language proficiency is really just general purpose language proficiency with technical vocabulary thrown in” • Sullivan (Uber Grosse and Voght 2012), Sager (1980) – no clear borderline • Gollin-Kies, Hall and Moore (2015) “The field of LSP has at different time been predominantly theory-driven and at other times predominantly practice driven” • Gunnarson (1997) difference in approaches over time/location • Gálová (2007) “The concept of languages for specific purposes shall always be related to the content; be based on the needs analysis and centred on language appropriate to particular disciplines and activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics etc.”

4. Communication in LSP • Oxford (1990) “development of communicative competence requires realistic interaction among learners using meaningful, contextualized language” • Clarke (1989) implementation of communicative theory: a) learner needs are taken into account, b) authenticity of materials, c) an information gap, d) a purpose • Brindley (1989) “Needs are seen as ‘instrumental’ – what does the learner need to be able to do with the language; course content to reflect the specific purpose of the learner.” • Dlaska (1999, Steinmetz 1993) LSP “not in opposition to general language systems but as a means of communicating among specialists”; successful LSP as “communicative language teaching with the area of communication, its subjects, situations and participants redefined for a specific context”

5. Theory into Practice • Gunnarson (1997) Gollins-Kies, Hall and Moore (2015) “wedge between professional researcher and classroom practitioner” • Swales (2000 on discourse analysis)“… if understanding discourse is so complexly situated in all these potentially various ways, then LSP practitioners are today forced into some kind of informal cost-benefit analysis as they struggle to come to terms with how much they need to know before they can offer what they have learned to their students.”; “climate of competing models, exhaustive explorations, growing internationalization, and an exploding literature”. • Hess-Lüttich (1987) lack of suitable texts, lack of involvement of subject experts in production, lack of teacher training • Pallotti, Bowles/Seedhouse (2007) advocate use of CA in research, teacher training, materials writing; “interactional competence will be specific” to domains; “application of CA methodology will produce a description of the interaction”; should be “used to construct an interactional pedagogy for specialised talk”

6. Purposes, Method and Tasks • Bulhmann and Fearns (2000 in Dlaska 2002) “ expertise …split between language expert and student”; Steinmetz (1993 in Dlaska 1999) “target language as tool” • Dlaska (2002) on needs: “very broad and difficult to predict with regard to the situations in which they are likely to use the target language” • Lave and Wenger (1991) “learning … as a process of becoming a member of a sustained community” • Monteiro, Rieger, Skiba & Steinmüller (1997) Survey at Technische Universität Berlin in Dlaska (1999, 2002):

7. Survey Data 1

8. Survey Data 2

9. Productive Tasks (oral) • Description of an object • Demonstration of experiment (10-15 mins), formulae, context • Description and analysis of graphs or data (adapted to the level) • In-class scientific expose: levels 4/5. 10 mins (topic related students' main field); presentation on power point/prezzi; 10-15 min presentation; 20 min analysis of article • Short individual in-class exposes (5mn. Once a term) • Debating sessions linked to topics studied in class (1x/term) • Debate on ethical issues • Medics focus on real-time oral communication each class (oral presentation at the end); role play • Various unassessed short oral/written topic related tasks ("Zukunftsstadt", "Wissenschaft und Forschung", Medien und Humor", "Arbeitswelt", "Studieren in D/Ö“) • Reading comp on range of general topics on science and tech: questions in pairs + work on key words and phrases + short discussion • Work in pairs on different clips + asked to present content to class.

10. Productive tasks (writing) • Work on written or oral document for 20 mn; present content to class + make personal comments • Formal written as well as oral summary of texts. • Write essay/abstract/synopsis of a lecture • Written assignment (2000 words) • Taking notes from online lectures (maths/chemistry/physics). • In class, there is continuous use of oral and written skills • Translation from English into French (pairs).

11. Summary and Conclusions • Communicative teaching underpinned by number of theories • Several strands of LSP • Link between theory and practice not well established • Challenges: number of participants, mixed target skills, mixed discipline background, lack of ‘expert’ knowledge • Constraints: class time, weeks • Develop framework • Improve FLSP network • Best practice forum, share resources/pedagogy • Shift focus in class • Maximise collaborative tasks • ‘No’

12. Selective Bibliography 1 • Bowles, H., Seedhouse, P. (2007) Interactional competence and the LSP classroom, in: Bowles & Seedhouse, Conversation Analysis and Language for Specific Purposes, Peter Lang, Bern, 305-329 • Dlaska, A. (1999) Suggestions for a subject-specific approach in teaching foreign languages to engineering and science students, System 27, 401-417 • - 2002, Sites of construction: language learning, multimedia, and the international engineer, Computers & Education, Volume 39, Issue 2, 129-143 • Douglas, D. (2000) Assessing Languages for Specific Purposes, CUP, Cambridge • Canale, M.; & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing, Applied Linguistics, 1, 1–47 • Gálová, D. (2007), Languages for Specific Purposes Searching for Common Solutions, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, retrieved from www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/59361 (last accessed 09/06/2017) • Gollin-Kies, S., Hall, D., Moore, S.H. (2015) Language for Specific Purposes, Palgrave Macmillan • Gunnarsson, B.L. (1997) Language for special purposes,in: Encyclopaedia of Language and Education, G. Richard Tucker/David Corson (eds.), Kluwer, Dordrecht, 105-117

13. Selective Bibliography 2 • Hess-Lüttich, E.W.B. (1987) Fachsprachenerwerb im Zweitsprachenerwerb, in: M. Sprissler, Standpunkte der Fachsprachenforschung, Gunter Narr, Tübingen, 111-128 • Hymes, D.H. (1972) On communicative competence. In: J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds.) Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth, Penguin • Lave, J. Situating learning in communities of practice. Perspectives on socially shared cognition, 2, 63-82 • Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice, CUP • Monteiro, M., Rieger, S., Steinmüller, U., & Skiba, R. (1997). Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Fachsprache im Ingenieurstudium. Frankfurt am Main: IKO - Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation • O’Sullivan, B. (2012). Assessment issues in languages for specific purposes. Modern Language Journal, 96 (Focus Issue), 71–88 • Richards, J.C., Rodgers, T.S. (2014) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press • Scott, W., Mühlhaus, Susanne (1994) Languages for Specific Purposes, CILT • Uber Grosse, C., Voght, G.M. (2012) The Continuing Evolution of Languages for Specific Purposes, Modern Language Journal, vol.96 (s1), 190-202 • Widdowson, H. (1978) Teaching Language as communication, OUP

14. Questionnaire 1 (Survey Monkey) Communicative Language for Specific Purposes 1 My university is 2 LSP is offered in which languages and levels (CEFR)? 3 On average the number of students per group is 4 The length of each LSP class is hours                    minutes 5 LSP courses are offered for the following number of weeks in each academic year 6 Students are from the following departments/ disciplines

15. Questionnaire 2 (Survey Monkey) 7 Do you offer bespoke courses for departments (e.g. Medical School only)? Yes (please specify below) No For which department(s)? Please also specify language, level, number of weeks and class length. 8 Are your LSP courses credit bearing? Yes No Credits (please specify ECTS or CATS) 9 Please list the types of productive (oral or written) tasks set in class. For each, please state - the length of time allocated for it in class, - how often they are included in class and - if they are assessed (yes/no and individually or as part of an exam/test)Example: write a mathematical formula on the whiteboard, read and explain it to group; 10 mins; 2x/year; yes (in final test)

16. http://www.imperial.ac.uk/languages/Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication3rd Floor, Sherfield BuildingSouth Kensington Campusf.starr-egger@imperial.ac.uk Contact details

17. Thank you