Task-Based Approach to Teaching English for Specific Purposes for Agronomy Students
Abstract
In the context of globalization, profession-oriented foreign language competence of specialists in the field of agronomy is essential for their competitiveness and professional development. This substantiates the need to improve ESP courses for agronomy students and make a shift from traditional vocabulary- and text-based teaching to reinforcing practical language use. Task-based language teaching (TBLT) can address these issues by implementing task-based interactive activities into ESP courses and placing students into professionally meaningful communicative situations relevant to agronomy.
This study investigated the effectiveness of the TBLT approach in ESP courses for agronomists. Based on needs analysis, the mandatory 90-hour ESP course for agronomists was redesigned in order to integrate profession-oriented tasks, including problem-solving (agronomic case studies), information processing (interpreting tables, charts, research extracts), productive tasks (presentations, writing / responding to professional emails) and interactive tasks (role-plays).
A quasi-experimental design was applied in order to determine whether the integrated task-based ESP course for agronomists enhanced students’ communicative competence across language skills. The experimental group completed pre- and post-tests, which assessed reading, listening, writing and speaking skills. Paired-sample t-test indicated a statistically significant improvement in overall performance (pre-test M=64.8, SD = 6.9; post-test M = 81.6, SD = 7.4), with a mean gain of 16.8, t (13) = 6.72, p < 0.001. Additional comparison with the group who completed a traditional ESP course using independent-sample t-test provided contextual support for the effectiveness of task-based ESP teaching (t (28) = 2.64, p = 0.013). The conducted classroom observations indicated increased students’ engagement, motivation and interaction in professionally relevant communication.
These findings confirmed that the integrated task-based ESP course for agronomists enhanced students’ communicative competence across language skills.
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References
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