Collaborative Teaching in an ESP Program
Collaborative Teaching in an ESP Program
Keywords: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), English for Science and Engineering, Collaborative Teaching, Attitude in Language
Learning
Ching-ning Chien, Wei Lee and Li-hua Kao
Chung Yuan Christian University, Republic of China
Bio Data
Ching-ning Chien holds M.A. degrees in Special Education from Tennessee Technological University and in English Education from Ohio State University, as well as a Ph.D. degree in Education from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. She is currently an associate professor in Applied Linguistics at Chung Yuan Christian University where she is teaches listening, speaking and reading to freshman students. Her research interests include foreign language listening comprehension, foreign language learning and teaching, bilingualism, phonological awareness and second language acquisition.
Wei Lee holds an M.S. degree in electro-optical engineering from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL. He is currently a full professor of physics at Chung Yuan Christian University. He has worked in the areas of liquid-crystal optics, structural vibration analysis, laboratory astrophysics, and physics education. His recent research interests are liquid-crystal photonics, nanoscience and nanotechnology in display applications, and pedagogy of English for science and technology for non-native speakers.
Li-hua Kao has an M.A. in Finance, an M.S. in Applied Statistics, and earned a Ph.D in Applied Statistics from University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She is an associate professor in the Accounting Department at Chung Yuan Christian University where teaches Research Methods, Econometrics and Statistics. Her recent research interest is on issues related to management in business using structural equation modeling.
This paper investigates collaborative teaching in an English-for-specific-purposes (ESP) class in Taiwan and reports the findings of the ESP course via a comparative study. Forty science students were assigned to an experimental class taught by both a language teacher and a physics professor and another forty to a control class taught by the language teacher alone. A paired t-test was used to assess the progress in various subjects from the pre-test to the post-test of English proficiency in the academic year. Furthermore, a two-sampled t-test was employed to compare the means and the percentage, obtained from a questionnaire survey of English needs of university students, between the two groups. It is shown that the experimental group had a more positive attitude and much more motivation toward English learning by the end of the academic year.
See page 114-133
[/private]Category: Main Editions, Volume 10 Issue 4
