| Augsut 2009 Volume 5 Issue 2
PDF Version
Foreword
Foreword
Winnie Cheng
Senior Editor
It is my pleasure to present the Autumn 2009 issue of the Asian ESP Journal. All the papers in this issue were reviewed under the editorship of Dr John Adamson, Senior Associate Editor. In the Foreword of the June 2006 edition, John announced the new title of the journal, Asian ESP Journal, that signals a clear direction and reflects “the core vision that we hold of creating a forum for ideas into English for Specific Purposes in Asian education” and for embracing the depth and diversity of ESP education, practice and research across a variety of academic and work contexts both in Asia and beyond the Asian zone. As in all of the previous issues, the Autumn 2009 issue represents a mixture of rigorous research studies and insights into different genres in different disciplines in different regions in Asia. It covers a range of genres, from ESP textbooks, student presentations, academic research articles, research article abstracts, to an ESP writing course.
Philippa Mungra’s ‘Conceptual metaphors in academic medical research articles’ is a corpus-based study, and has identified and discussed two groups of linguistic metaphors: primary metaphors using input domains relating to bodily or cultural experience and blends of words or phrases.
Md. Momtazur Rahman et al.’s article ‘Needs analysis for developing an ESP writing course for foreign postgraduates in science and technology at National University of Malaysia’ is underpinned by the theoretical aspects of Present Situation Analysis (PSA) and Target Situation Analysis (TSA). Through semi-structured interviews and analysis of master’s degree theses, the study identifies the students’ needs and difficulties in writing for academic purposes, and suggests important writing tasks and skills for the proposed ESP writing course.
In the third article ‘Simultaneous group presentations’, Mark Brierley and Jonathon Adams discuss a method of increasing the speaking time of students in class and reducing the audience size within oral presentations. They also discuss issues relating to classroom management and implementation and participant roles in the context of student presentation within the broader context of communicative language teaching.
Khaled Jebahi’s ‘Using a commercially developed ESP textbook: A classroom dilemma’ focuses on the emotional and intellectual reactions of the students towards this textbook, and the rectifications made in the lessons contained in this textbook in light of student attitudes, current research on textbook evaluation, and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The results of the study show that learners are dissatisfied with topics, tasks, listening, pronunciation, how to take part in conversation, skill coverage, skill integration, recycling, and revision. The study underlines the need to modify instructional materials to suit the needs and levels of specific learners in specific contexts.
Ebrahim Zangani’s study ‘The ESP textbook problem: The evaluation of ESP textbooks in Humanities in the undergraduate program of Iranian universities’ uses different questionnaires for students and professors, and has identified some problems in the ESP textbooks used in Iran which need to be resolved. Using z tests, the study finds that these textbooks should be modified in the light of new approaches in language learning and teaching and student needs. Based on the findings, the article suggests some guidelines for the selection or adaptation of ESP textbooks.
Hesamoddin Shahriari Ahmadi’s ‘A comparison of genre: Biological science research article abstracts by Iranian and native English-speaking scholars’ analyses thirty published abstracts in established, international journals. The step and move analysis of the abstracts shows that Iranian writers tend to focus on the methodology and procedure of the study, and pay little, if any, attention to relating the findings to the outside world, or to solving a genuinely perceived problem. The study also conducted interviews with Iranian researchers to investigate the reasons underlying such an inclination.
We hope you will enjoy reading the six papers and find the wide-ranging research findings and pedagogical implications useful for your academic and research pursuits
August 2009
Volume 5 Issue 2
PDF EBook Version (click)
Foreword by Winnie Cheng
1. Philippa Mungra - Conceptual Metaphors in Academic Medical Research Articles
2. Md. Momtazur Rahman, Thang Siew Ming, Mohd Sallehhundin Abd Aziz, & Norizan Abdul Razal- Needs Analysis for Developing an ESP Writing Course for Foreign Postgraduates in Science and Technology at National University of Malaysia
3. Mark Brierley & Jonathon Adams- Simultaneous Group Presentations
4. Khaled Jebahi - Using a Commercially Developed ESP Textbook: A Classroom Dilemma
5. Ebrahim Zangani- The ESP Textbook Problem: The evaluation of ESP textbooks in Humanities in the Undergraduate Program of Iranian Universities
6. Hesamoddin Shahriari Ahmadi - A Comparison of Genre: Biological Science Research Article Abstracts by Iranian and Native English-Speaking Scholars
|
