CUE ESP Symposium 2012 Event Review

Note: presentations and poster files can be downloaded here

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CUE ESP Symposium – Kansai 2012, September 8
Steven Taro Suzuki, Waseda University, Faculty of Science and Engineering.

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The CUE ESP Symposium – Kansai 2012, a joint collaboration between the JALT CUE SIG and JACET Kansai ESP SIG, was held at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) and co-chaired by Leigh McDowell and Steven Nishida. Two leading ESP experts in Japan, Dr. Laurence Anthony of Waseda University and Dr. Judy Noguchi of Mukogawa Women’s University were invited as plenary speakers. After the plenary speeches, there was a poster presentation session, and this was followed by speaker workshops. Finally, there was a roundtable discussion involving all symposium participants.

Dr. Noguchi presents the foundations and basic concepts of ESP

In her presentation, Exploring ESP Roots and Applications, Dr. Judy Noguchi offered the foundations and basic concepts of ESP. She highlighted the importance of collaboration between field specialists and language teachers, genre awareness, and encouraging autonomous learning. She emphasized a “no community, no language” concept for ESP. She supported this argument by discussing the socio-rhetorical purposes of genres, and the socio-discoursal, socio-cultural, and socio-political influences of ESP.

Dr. Noguchi then discussed two major “tools” to master genres: Observe-Classify-Hypothesize-Apply (OCHA) and Purpose-Audience-Information-Language features (PAIL). She also shared some examples of genre analyses using OCHA and PAIL. She ended her presentation on her view of what ESP is about – genre awareness and understanding genre using OCHA and PAIL in order to develop systemic literacy and learning as a life-long endeavor.

Although I did not attend Dr. Noguchi’s workshop since it ran concurrently with Dr. Anthony’s, I understand that it was about issues in ESP classrooms and finding solutions that can suit different situations. Overall, I found her presentation very informative and her approach fascinating. She referred to some literature that I have not read yet, so I could add a few items to my reading list. I found her concepts of OCHA and PAIL creative and ingenious.

Dr. Anthony presented advances in corpus-informed ESP research and teaching

Dr. Laurence Anthony presented Advances in Corpus-Informed ESP Research and Teaching. First, he discussed some of the problems in traditional ESP course design that have led to ESP courses being assigned minor roles in English programs. He then introduced corpus-informed ESP research and argued that although language varies across specialist subjects, teaching unique features of a discipline is not obligatory in an ESP course. He proposed that ESP teachers need to help learners understand what, how, and when core features of language vary; and recognize, analyze, and estimate probabilistic variation in language features across texts and genres. To accomplish these undertakings, he introduced Data-Driven Learning (DDL) as an effective student-centered approach to empower learners. Finally, Dr. Anthony proposed a new ESP course/program design that puts ESP at the center of English programs. In closing his presentation, he reiterated that corpus approaches are effective in ESP research and teaching.

Dr. Anthony extended his presentation in the workshop by going into further details on DDL uses in the classroom. He discussed four stages to a DDL approach and provided specific examples of classroom practices using his concordance software, AntConc. This is now the leading international concordance software for corpus research.

I would characterize Dr. Anthony’s presentation and workshop as cutting-edge and compelling. It seems to me that a DDL approach using corpora adds an innovative dimension to ESP practices. However, teachers must be willing to learn how to effectively use DDL.

Posters ranged from state-of-the-art ESP e-learning programs to traditional approaches such as Content-Based Learning

During the poster session, ten ESP practitioners shared their research and pedagogical practices. Being one of the presenters precluded me from seeing each poster in great depth. However, I can say that there was a great deal of variety. Posters ranged from state-of-art ESP e-learning programs to traditional approaches such as Content-Based Learning; and from specific disciplines such as economics, nursing, and medicine to the more general areas of science and research. Some posters even focused on vocabulary such as cognates or the Academic Words List. Essentially, the poster session was lively and interactive, and provided a nice compliment to the plenary presentations and workshops.

Following the workshops was a roundtable discussion

Following the workshops was a roundtable discussion where various topics were discussed, some relating to the work of Dr. Anthony and Dr. Noguchi, and others more general in ESP. An informal social dinner party following the symposium offered a nice final touch to an overall successful event. One final thing that deserves mention is the origin of this symposium. A small group of us convened after my own workshop at JALT2011, and discussed the lack of ESP events on the JALT calendar. One idea was that an ESP event would benefit ESP practitioners scattered throughout various JALT networks. McDowell and Nishida of NAIST ran with this idea, and with the backing of CUE and support of the JACET Kansai ESP SIG, turned the idea into reality. Thanks to McDowell and Nishida, this event may be the spark that spreads to further JALT ESP events.