CUE ESP Symposium 2013

JALT CUE ESP Symposium 2013
Getting Published in English: Opportunities and Obstacles

Date: Sept 7, 2013 1:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Cost: 2000 yen (1000 yen w/ student ID)

The CUE ESP Symposium—Hokuriku 2013 features: 1) A plenary presentation from two of the foremost experts in ESP and EAP publishing in Japan, 2) interactive workshops and research presentations addressing some of the barriers faced by NNS seeking to publish in English, 3) a chance to share your own ESP work during the poster presentation session, and 4) a round-table discussion on getting published in English as both a native and a non-native speaker of English.

Add to all this the opportunity to network with peers from throughout the country, a dinner featuring local cuisine, and the chance to visit the scenic old castle town of Kanazawa, and you have the makings for a great weekend. We look forward to seeing you here.

Call for submissions for the poster presentation session

Here is a chance to share your own work in ESP with other ESP practitioners in a poster presentation session during the CUE ESP Symposium—Hokuriku 2013. Posters can be in English or Japanese. Selection will be based on relevance to the field of ESP and professional quality. For more details see our poster submissions page.

Plenary Address: John Adamson and Theron Muller
From assignments toward publication: Brokering academic writing

This discussion will consider conversations of the disciplines among ESP/EAP teachers, students and content faculty regarding disciplinary writing norms. Traditionally, ESP/EAP instruction focuses on academic skills generally relevant to the classroom. Our intention is to bridge the academic writing classroom with writing for publication. We realize such a perspective provides a challenge for students and teachers, both perhaps unfamiliar with publishing norms, particularly those that are field specific. These norms include editorial expectations for the presentation of manuscripts and talk around texts, such as author email correspondence, along with expectations regarding revision and co-construction of research following editorial review. We feel the keys to overcoming these challenges lie in linking the classroom roles of teacher-as-writer and student-as-writer with a network of supportive literacy brokers. The implications of this are intra- and interdisciplinary in nature, calling for improved interconnection between EAP and content faculty and flattening of the hierarchical relationship that exists between them. Important for classroom practice, this involves a pedagogical approach moving beyond a focus on academic text production in the university curriculum toward the importance of specifically preparing classroom participants for writing for academic publication.

John Adamson is an Associate Professor at the University of Niigata Prefecture in Japan . He is Senior Associate Editor of /Asian EFL Journal and Chief Editor of The Linguistics Journal. He received his Ed.D. from Leicester University in the U.K. and is currently interested in interdisciplinarity and developing journal editorial systems.

Theron Muller, University of Toyama, is a teacher and researcher based in Japan. He is lead editor of Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia, Palgrave Macmillan and teaches the online MASH Academic Publishing course. He is interested in academic publishing research and TEFL/TESL classroom-based research.

Workshop/Paper 1: Iida Atsushi
Write like an engineer: Teaching writing in the Japanese EFL classroom

Writing is one of the crucial skills for communication, but it is sometimes seen as less important than reading, listening, and speaking skills in Japanese EFL contexts. In general, Japanese students are insufficiently trained to write papers in English as a foreign language (EFL) at the secondary and even the tertiary level. In this context, how can college English teachers teach writing to students who need to develop their written communication skills?

In this workshop, the presenter will describe some issues and challenges of second language (L2) writing at the tertiary level in Japan, and discuss how writing instructors can use genre-based approaches in the English classroom to make connections between first-year general English (EGP) and second-year engineering English (ESP). Focusing on teaching English to Engineering students, the presenter will demonstrate a short writing lesson for college sophomores taken from the writing classroom.

Atsushi Iida is Assistant Professor in the University Education Center at Gunma University where he has taught first-year and second-year English courses. He was awarded his Ph.D. in English (Composition and TESOL) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA. His research interests include poetry writing in a second language, literature in second language education, scholarly publication in a second language, and English for Specific Purposes (ESP).

Workshop/Paper: 2 Matt Apple
The vocabulary and style of engineering research abstract writing

Students in the Advanced Faculty of Engineering (senkoka) at colleges of technology are required to write their graduation thesis abstracts in English; likewise, they are encouraged by their advisors to submit English research abstracts to overseas conferences to present their research. However, although many senkoka students have a large English vocabulary, they are often unaware of writing styles and phrases used in research paper and presentation abstracts by particular engineering fields.


In this presentation, I will share findings from a pilot study that investigated the vocabulary levels and writing styles of abstracts written by senkoka students compared with that of online engineering research abstracts from IEEE conferences. Results showed that students knew many difficult, low frequency words but experienced a gap in vocabulary knowledge among easier, higher frequency words. Similarly, students’ abstracts tended to rely heavily on dense phraseology and showed little awareness of accepted rhetorical forms, while online abstracts tended to use less technical jargon and used specific writing pattern to introduce research findings in the study.

I will conclude the presentation with some examples demonstrating how I used preliminary findings from the comparative studies to help senkoka students to improve their English research abstract writing.

Matthew Apple (MFA, MEd, EdD) is an associate professor of International Communication at Ritsumeikan University. He has taught at various levels of education in Japan since 1999, from primary to graduate school, and is the lead editor of the upcoming book "Language Learning Motivation in Japan", from Multilingual Matters. His research interests include ESP, individual differences, and second language vocabulary. E-mail: mapple@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp

Workshop/Paper 3: Theron Muller
Editing and reviewing: Composing constructive feedback for authors

Academic writing instructors, editors, and reviewers often have the difficult responsibility of addressing issues of language in the papers that they evaluate and work with. That standards of ‘good’ language in the academy are often implicit, and associated with such terms as ‘clear’ and ‘concise’ makes the task of addressing language problems in papers all the more complex (Turner, 2011). This interactive workshop will discuss providing constructive comments on and suggestions for revising samples of academic writing, both for teachers and students, to make the kind of changes necessary to meet expectations of language in academic writing more explicit. Samples will largely be taken from the field of TEFL/TESL, but the principles discussed should be applicable to a variety of genres. Participants should expect to increase their awareness of how to evaluate written work intended for publication, and gain understanding in how to formulate comments that are easily comprehended and hopefully readily implementable by authors. The strategies discussed will help participants gain perspective when commenting on student work, editing colleagues’ manuscripts, and completing academic reviews.