LANGUAGE IN INDIA

TEXT FAMILIARITY, READING TASKS, AND ESP TEST PERFORMANCE: A STUDY ON IRANIAN LEP AND NON-LEP UNIVERSITY STUDENTS -
A DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
Mohammad Ali Salmani-Nodoushan, Ph.D.

THE PROMISE OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES

Individuals are not only speakers, but also receivers, consumers, readers and interpreters of language. The extent to which one knows and uses a foreign language may be crucial to one's existence, education, relationships, and careers. As soon as the world entered the new millennium, the ability and the need to understand and communicate with others became increasingly important, at times even urgent. Today, an international exchange of ideas-from environmental issues such as the thinning ozone layer and the warming of the planet, to medical topics such as genetic engineering, to political crises-is essential.

To meet these communication needs, more and more individuals have highly specific academic and professional reasons for seeking to improve their language skills: for these students, usually adults, courses that fall under the heading English for Special Purposes (ESP) hold particular appeal. ESP can help people to become better professionals, which may reflect on their whole lives.

GREAT INTEREST IN ESP IN RECENT YEARS

The recent increase in ESP publications, conference presentations, professional gatherings, Web sites, e-mail lists, invited lectures, consulting requests, and model program study-tours adequately testifies to the fact that ESP has gained a significant place in the world. Motivated by new policies and priorities at national and local levels, many universities worldwide are now in the midst of rethinking their English language curriculums and searching for better options. Therefore, for more effective instructional content, ESP is considered an intelligent option.

Beginning in the early 1960s, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to become one of the most prominent areas of EFL teaching today. Its development is reflected in the increasing number of universities offering an MA in ESP (e.g. The University of Birmingham, and Aston University in the UK) and in the number of ESP courses offered to overseas students in English speaking countries. There is now a well-established international journal dedicated to ESP discussion (English for Specific Purposes: An international journal), and the ESP SIG groups of the IATEFL and TESOL are always active at their national conferences.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ESP AND EGP

What are the differences between English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English for General Purposes (EGP)? Hutchinson and Waters (1987) answer this quite simply: "in theory, nothing, in practice, a great deal." On the face of it, ESP differs from EGP in the sense that the words and sentences learned, the subject matter discussed, all relate to a particular field or discipline-for example, a lawyer writing a brief, or a diplomat preparing a policy paper. ESP courses make use of vocabulary and tasks related to the field such as negotiation skills and effective techniques for oral presentations. The entire program is designed to meet the specific professional or academic needs of the learner. A balance is created between educational theory and practical considerations. ESP also increases students' skills and confidence in using English.

A CLOSER LOOK AT EGP AND ESP IS NEEDED

A closer look at EGP and ESP is, however, vital. English for General Purposes (EGP) is essentially the English language education in junior and senior high schools. Students are introduced to the sounds and symbols of English, as well as to the lexical/grammatical/rhetorical elements that compose spoken and written discourse. EGP also focuses on applications in general situations: appropriate dialogue with restaurant staff, bank tellers, postal clerks, telephone operators, English teachers, and party guests as well as lessons on how to read and/or write the English typically found in textbooks, newspaper and magazine articles, telephone books, shopping catalogues, application forms, personal letters, e-mail, and home pages. Supplementary information about appropriate gestures, cultural conventions, and cultural taboos is also normally included in EGP curriculums. EGP conducted in English-speaking countries is typically called ESL, and EGP conducted in non-English-speaking countries is normally called EFL. Pedagogically, a solid understanding of basic EGP should precede higher-level instruction in ESP if ESP programs are to yield satisfactory results.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

In a study of the effects of text familiarity, task type, and language proficiency on university students' LSP test and task performance, 541 senior and junior university students majoring in electronics took the Task-Based Reading Test (TBRT). The results indicated that the effect of each of these factors on subjects' test and performances was statistically significant. Moreover, the impact of the interactions between any given pair and also among all three of these factors on subjects' test performance was statistically significant.

Subjects' performance on different tasks at the same level of text familiarity afforded statistically significant results. The semi-and no-proficient subjects did not perform significantly different in the following contexts: (a) true-false, sentence-completion, and writer's-view tasks in partially familiar tests; (b) outlining, writer's-view, true-false, and sentence completion tasks in totally unfamiliar tests; and (c) sentence-completion, outlining, and writer's-view tasks in totally familiar tests.

The differences found in subjects' performances on the same tasks at different levels of text familiarity were also significant.

However, the difference between semi- and non-proficient subjects' performance was not statistically significant when they performed (a) the true-false task in partially familiar versus totally familiar contexts, and (b) outlining, sentence-completion, and writer's-view tasks along the text-familiarity cline. In a comparison of different tasks, subjects' performance of the sentence-completion task was found to be significantly different from their performance of the other four tasks in question along the text-familiarity cline. Moreover, subjects' performances of the writer's-view and the true-false tasks in totally unfamiliar contexts differed significantly. In addition, regression analyses revealed that the greatest influence on subjects' overall and differential test and task performance was due to language proficiency.

This is my Ph.D. dissertation, submitted to the Graduate Studies Office in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), November, 2002.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ A PRINTER-FRIENDLY COMPLETE COPY OF THIS DISSERTATION.

Mohammad Ali Salmani-Nodoushan

TSUNAMI AFTER-SHOCKS- SOME JAPANESE WORDS IN ENGLISH | A SOCIO-LINGUISTC STUDY OF CODE SWITCHING AMONG THE COCHIN TAMILS | PRACTICING LITERARY TRANSLATION - A SYMPOSIUM BY MAIL -- FOURTH ROUND | TEXT FAMILIARITY, READING TASKS, AND ESP TEST PERFORMANCE: A STUDY ON IRANIAN LEP AND NON-LEP UNIVERSITY STUDENTS - A DOCTORAL DISSERTATION | ADVANCED WRITING - A COURSE TEXTBOOK | A SIMPLE SCRIPT FOR BANGLA AND THE IPA MAPPING THEREOF | EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE POLICY - BRITISH CABINET MISSION TO CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY - CHANGING POLICIES OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS AND THE ALL INDIA MUSLIM LEAGUE | NAYANAGARI - A SIMPLE CONJUNCT-FREE SCRIPT FOR DEVANAGARI | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR