SUCHOMELOVÁ-POLOMSKA, Agnieszka. What is expertise in language teaching? Balancing between LAP and LSP. CASALC Review. Česká a slovenská asociace učitelů jazykových center na vysokých školách, 2021, Vol 11, No 1, p. 93 - 103. ISSN 1804-9435. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CASALC2021-1-8.
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Basic information
Original name What is expertise in language teaching? Balancing between LAP and LSP.
Authors SUCHOMELOVÁ-POLOMSKA, Agnieszka.
Edition CASALC Review, Česká a slovenská asociace učitelů jazykových center na vysokých školách, 2021, 1804-9435.
Other information
Original language English
Type of outcome Article in a journal
Country of publisher Czech Republic
Confidentiality degree is not subject to a state or trade secret
WWW URL
Organization unit Language Centre
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CASALC2021-1-8
Keywords in English LAP, LSP, academic skills, soft skills, transferable skills, functional language, student autonomy, student-generated content, interdisciplinarity
Tags Reviewed
Changed by Changed by: Agnieszka Suchomelová-Polomska, M.A., učo 114695. Changed: 19/5/2022 15:19.
Abstract
The wish to turn university education into meaningful preparation for a successful professional career has given rise to teaching foreign languages for specific purposes (LSPs). While in the 1980s there were just a few main branches of LSPs, like Business English or English for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), today, in the efforts to provide tailor-made courses for a specific sector of prospective employees, they have increased to an extensive range of courses taught for narrow specializations, such as English for Sports Managers, which I taught at a college in the past. Dealing with unknown discipline-related elements of an LSP, however, are sources of anxiety for many language teachers at the start of their career. I suggest that this unpleasant situation be dealt with by shifting the attention to practising academic and soft skills, as well as functional language (all belonging to the area of LAP - languages for academic purposes), which would serve as a template for the very discipline-related language that our students need. The eternal "what" and "how" of LSP teaching can be additionally handled by giving the students enough autonomy to help us generate classroom content. The results of a survey conducted on bachelor's and master's students from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, taught at B1 and B2 levels, seem to prove that point, as does my experience after teaching these two levels for the last ten years.
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