Dear Ms. Marjan Vosoughi,

There has been a long-standing conflict over who should teach technical coureses. The American tratdition has introduced the adunct model in which the language teacher and subject matter teacher cooperate to meet the target goals. As you have rightly observed, there is a strong possibility for cooperation, collaboration and team teaching for handling an ESP/EAP course where linguistic expertise is fortified by clarification of technicalities and necessities dominating technical courses.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Thanks a lot. The point is that i am seeking some ways for collaboration in Iranian universities. But before doing that i need to know scholars' views as well.

English teachers who have the technical knowledge qualifications. English teachers who has engineering degree might know better the presentation of technical reports in terms of style and jjargons.

Technical English courses in universities are taught by subject matter teacher but it can present challenges for even the most experienced educator. I D L T M (The International Diploma in Language Teaching Management) gives you the management tools to succeed in a new phase of your career.Its blended course which combines a two-week face-to-face component and six months of online work to provide the tools to help you succeed in language teaching management.

Language, absolutely!

Thank you all, Kiran, Ruben and Jyh.. These are all the challenges that both should tackle together, yes. waiting for other views...

          One possibility for integrating subject and language content is team teaching. In team teaching the EAP teacher (the language specialist) works alongside a content teacher/ lecturer (a subject specialist). For example, in teaching English for legal studies, the students may be given a reading text and comprehension questions on it (a text for example from a law textbook). In class the lecturers/teachers and students review the students’ answers to the questions. The EAP teacher deals with queries and corrections of language items and highlights language features in the text and the law lecturer deals with queries and corrections of the students’ answers in terms of their understanding of legal content and highlights points of law.

          Clearly, some engagement with the subject discipline is essential to the development of an effective EAP course. At the minimum this should involve an understanding of the texts, tasks and forms of information delivery in the target course or discipline, and the use of tutors as informants on the literacy practices of their fields. More integrated forms of involvement are likely to bring further benefits and we are likely to see more of these pursued in the future, as content and EAP teachers gain greater understanding of each other’s work and build up, over time, a working relationship of trust and respect.

Thanks Ali  and Aditi.. The realities show the reverse of what we intend EAP courses to be. In the majority of cases, subject matter teachers are indulging with minimum amounts of language knowledge and pedagogical skills. I hope i can collect more views as to how we can solidify collaboration. 

I have that situation in  the university where I work. Our students will be future engineers and of course, they need technical English to learn all the vocabulary related to their field. In my opinion, English teachers can deal with this kind of courses because they have the experience and ability to adapt their classes to English for Specific Purposes. They are able to make students learn not only technical vocabulary but also real-life work situations. Future engineers will be dealing with conferences, presentations, interviews, and so. Of course, they might need some help from content teachers, especially when it is hard to know the meaning of some specific content vocabulary but internet plays its role well.

It seems that English Department Teachers were more successful in teaching ESP. However there was controversial findings about the students' attitude toward these two courses ESP and EGP and these two types of instructors. Here is a part of one of my papers, maybe you find it helpful.

thanks shahram and Ada Luisa. 

ESP : English for Special Purpose … WE  have conducted , designed and taught in such courses wherein trainees from various ministries and establishments require ESP for their jobs and careers ,, such courses are better taught by teachers of English because this material contains special technical vocabulary and terminology which must be pronounced correctly ,,sometimes teachers of specific material – though they are the masters in their specialization – yet their English might not be perfect ,,, this is because their study in their major   has been their  mother tongue ( Arabic, Indian , Chinese , French ….etc)

Therefore , I recommend that teachers of English teach in ESP rather than the teachers of the material itself …the courses I used to run in ESP were the most successful and most of our trainees who participated in these courses  have got scholarships /  joined training courses in England or pursued their higher studies in their own specializations abroad …

thank you Nidhal. Can i ask you in which university majors in your experiences, 'pronunciation' is an issue ? I'd like to have some examples. GREAT! 

Well, in my opinion, I believe that content specialist should have a high common of target language. Or perhaps language specialist should follow a student centred approach. I published my thesis findings on a similar topic an in the finding section can read what I concluded. I will also send you the links to other works published in the field.

I hope this info is useful.

Romero

Lara Herrera, R. (2015). Mexican secondary school students’ perception of learning the history of Mexico in English. PROFILE Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 17(1), 105-120. http://dx.doi.org/10.15446/profile.v17n1.44739.

Pérez-Cañado, M. L. (2012). CLIL research in Europe: Past, present, and future International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15, 315–341.

Pérez Cañado, M. L. (2013). Introduction. Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, 19: 15–30.

Pérez Cañado, M. L. (2014). Teacher training needs for bilingual education: in-service teacher perceptions. International Journal of CLIL Research, 1, 1–30. doi:10.1080/13670050.2014.980778

Pérez Cañado, M. L., & Ráez Padilla, J. (2014). Introduction and Overview. In D. Marsh, M. L. Pérez Cañado, & J. Ráez Padilla (Eds.), CLIL in action: Voices in the classroom (pp. 1-13). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Thanks Romero.

For purely technical words and phrases, practitioners in the field can do an adequate job, but to teach students how to write reports or give papers in English or any other language, one has to use ESL teachers. The same is true of teaching students how to understand the speech at a conference. Knowing the meaning of individual lexical items is not sufficient for understanding oral or written discourse. 

Dear Marjan 

Reply to your question - York University ( Dept. of Linguistics ) UK 

English Second Language teachers are the most well-prepared and well known with the language genres and corpus which require many methods according to the levels are taught.I think that if English teachers teach at universities,there will be educational tangible results on the students academic performances.

Answer to your first question:

Since I am a language teacher with experience in teaching English for Specific Purpose I am inclined to reply to this kind of question: Of course, language teachers can be just as efficient as subject matter specialists. However, teaching, e.g. Business English is different from teaching a subject matter course in a foreign language in terms of the aims, focus on the language of delivery, as well as the content.  However, in case the language teacher uses a prescribed textbook it is the aspect of content that might pose a problem, if the content of the textbook prescribed does not reflect the state-of-the-art information, or if it presents a simplified picture of the  discipline under study. I personally believe in cooperation and in lifelong language teacher education and self-development in this respect.

Answer to your second question:

In my opinion, an ideal situation is when both parties, i.e.  the specialist in the subject matter and the language teacher can be present in the class. I tried co-teaching once at our university in my courses in Rhetoric for Economists. The other teacher was my American colleague, who was a specialist in public speaking. We enjoyed this experience and so did our students. Of course, one should not expect any special bonus. Your bonus is that you belong to those very fortunate people for whom their work is their hobby.

Of course, it is always suitable if we, as language teachers (despite long-term experience in teaching English for Specific Purposes) find some time to dicuss more complex aspects of the subject discipline with one of our colleagues -- economists. I have tried that as well and I think both of us gained something. I am sure this interdisciplinary cooperation is interesting and enriching.

And a final solution: the best way is if you can discuss it at home, with (tolerant) members of your family (but not too often). And this is also my situation: my husband is an economist and so are my daughters.

Moreover, I work at an interdisciplinary faculty, the Faculty of Applied Languages. 

I viewed your interesting response Daniela, but there is some thing yet not clear; the problem of teaching ESP courses is: who is subject matter teacher? what certification does she/he have? At least in our universities I am sure that ESP instructors in university do not have special training in teaching English and I doubt to say what grade they can get if they participate in language proficiency test. Therefore do you think that this person has the right to teach any thing in English?

The last time I faced with this problem was when my sister came to me and asked me to translate a piece of technical text into Persian. I asked what they do for English in Accounting Course and she answered the instructor or students read the text and translate orally into Persian. Does this kind of instruction need language teacher or subject matter teacher or anyone else? A self guide book with translation can be as well as the mentioned situation or maybe better. Therefore the context of teaching and the knowledge of the instructor are important too.

In my opinion the subject matter teachers can be as well as the language teachers or maybe better but in the condition that first they themselves have good knowledge in English language and then try to teach especial subject matter to their students.

Thank you for opening the discussion

The French Institute from my town used this method in teaching French for Business years ago: language teachers were present in the classroom taught by subject matter teachers. In my opinion, simultaneous co-presence is not only possible in this case, but also necessary.

In the case already mentioned, the specialist taught specialized vocabulary and the language teacher's role was to take care of the pronunciation and grammar mistakes made by the students during their oral production.

As I mentioned before, I believe that a content teacher should have content knowledge regardless the situation. I taught world history, geography and history of Mexico in English in a middle school in Mexico and despite it being middle-school, I had to spend massive amount of time brushing up on the content subjects and making meaningful and suitable material for the classes. Would I do it again? Probably not as I believe that a content teacher with a high command of the target language should be teaching topics and not an ELT Specialist. 

As for Business English, is it really a business class or is it an English class that uses publish material that is aimed at no specific area. That I think and qualified ELT teacher can do. But to teach a topic related to a business BA is a whole new ball game. You should really think of the pros and cons of doing so.

Your study seems interesting.  I teach both Technical English and Business English at the American University of Beirut.  I have not had any training in either field.  I have found that my long experience with the course has added to my knowledge of business and made me a better teacher so some content knowledge is useful, mostly in the preparation of activities, prompts and examples.  I think the ESP teacher initially faces some authority issues in that the students themselves may think you are not qualified to teach them skills required for business writing so here again, some knowledge is useful.  That being said, as an ESP teacher, you are not teaching them business content.  I find it important to be comfortable with not knowing certain content and to use that as a learning experience, both for oneself and for the students.  

I think it is very important to clarify whether you are teaching Business English or Business Communication.... I am not sure whether the distinction really exists but is one working with the vocabulary and sentence structure level and situations that may arise in the business world or is the course more about writing reports, memos, emails; delivering business presentations; using proper business style and tone?  

In any case, I think it would be useful to have both content and language teachers collaborating in the teaching of the skills as long as the language teacher is not relegated to an inferior status.  

Great. Elevating the role of language teachers in such courses is the main concern. Yes, In some cases, they are losing the required rigor.   Hope you best success and waiting for other views on how we can give more prominence to the role that a language teacher can play in ESP courses.  

Co-presence teaching sounds like a good solution for this issue. I am currently working in a polytechnical university and I have noticed that some engineers with good command of the second language (English) have tried to teach content subjects using L2. The students do not have good L2 sufficiency so they have problems understanding what the professor wants to transmit. Since they are engineers, they might lack some pedagogy so as to teach both: L2 and the content subject. The ideal scenario would be to have professors with these three characteristics: content knowledgeable, L2 proficient, and pedagogue! Not easy!

yeah, it should not be that easy, but we want to do  maximum good to the students and give the interest to the practicing teachers as well as much as as possible . Thanks for your sharing your experience..