Application of Technology in ESP Courses – A

Psycholinguistic Study

Masoumeh Kafshgarsouteh1, Dara Tafazoli2,Tahereh Jalili3, Ghazaleh Jafari4

1,3,4Islamic Azad University –Science & Research Branch (IRAN) 2University of Applied Science & Technology (IRAN)

kafshgarm@gmail.com, dara.tafazoli@yahoo.com, t.jalili87@yahoo.com, ghazaleh.jafari2012@gmail.com

English for specific purposes growth from early

1960 (Anthony, 1997). This approach became one of the crucial one in realm of EFL teaching. As this approach developed the number of university such as the University of Birmingham and Aston University which focused on this approach become increased.

English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

ESP is an approach which demonstrates people who

want to learn English for their specific needs. "ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner's reason for learning"(Hutchinson & Waters, 1987 p.19). Dudley-Evans & St. John (1998) stated that "ESP is designed to meet the specific needs of the learner".It must be consider that ESP should be focus on the need analysis for illustrating what students should have to do during the medium of English (Robinson, 1991). Dudley-Evans & St. John (1998) mentioned "ESP is centered on the language appropriate to these activities in terms of grammar, lexis, register, study skills, discourse and genre".

According to (Knight et al, 2010) ESP learners separate to the

two category. The first category relates to students who want to learn English for developing expertise and they use English language as training tool for communication .The second one are students who are experts and want to use English as tools in their work. van Vlack (2009) pointed out that "the ESP approach can be conducted with any age or any level of student although it is more often associated with older higher level students"(p. 1).

Mouzakitis (2003) stated that we are not just consider ESP as specialized course of science or technology it must be view as an approach for identifying the specific demands of learner through teaching or learning a specific content. So the goal of ESP can be draws attention to learner centered for reaching to the specific needs of learner.

Integrating technology into classroom instruction

had so many advantages for classrooms as well as students.

Student with access to technology learn how to organize complex information, recognize patterns, draw inferences, and communicate findings (Baron & Goldman, 1994). “Studies of students with disabilities show that technology can expand access to educational resources and enhance students’ ability to process and remember information” (Zorfass, Corley & Remz, 1994).

Technology in Classrooms

David Dwyer (1994) in his article stated that

“the use of technology in the classroom improves students’ motivation and attitudes about themselves and about learning.

Technology-rich schools report higher attendance and lower dropout rates than in the past.” In psychological point of view, we can say that, students who use technology, they benefit more from pride, confidence and self-esteem in their works.

In classrooms integrated with technology, the role

of a teacher changed from merely an authority or lecturer to a facilitator or coach (Tafazoli, 2011). Tinzman (1998) believed that “technology use tends to foster collaboration among students in the classroom”. Education without technology, in one hand, is: (1) passive, (2) formal, (3) instructor center, and (4) time dependent, and on the other hand, education with technology is: (1) active, (2) informal, (3) student center, and (4) time independent.

Kargozari & Tafazoli (2011) in a study showed

that by using some tools such as vodcasts, students have access to the material of instruction whenever and wherever they liked.

Students in classes that use computer aided instruction outperformed their peers on standardized test of basic skills achievement by 30 percent on average (Kulik, Kulik and Bangert-Downs, 1991; Kulik and Kulik, 1991).

Aim: To study the attitudes of English for

Specific Purposes (ESP) students towards using technology in their courses

Participants: 43 ESP students Major: Tourism University: University of Applied Science &

Technology – Miras Farhangi, Mashhad, Iran

Methodology

Instruments for technology-based instruction:

Podcasts Web-based tasks Weblogs Email

Data analysis was conducted in accordance

with the research questions, all of which were concerned with the ESP students’ attitudes towards using technology in their courses. In this study, a survey questionnaire

was employed to collect data. The questionnaire that was used to collect data for this research study was developed by researchres.

Data Analysis

The first part of a questionnaire included 15 items

used to measure the present foreign language learning and teaching situation in the university.

The second part had 10 items, which questioned the expectations of technology use in ESP courses. Here the questionnaire was designed as a 5-point Likert scale, where 1=strongly disagree to the concept, 2=disagree to the concept, 3=undecided to the concept, 4=agree to the concept, and 5=strongly favourable to the concept.

Trying to assess the attitude of ESP students

towards using technology in their courses, we notice that 89,5% of the participants actually would agree to use technology-based instruction in their classroom. It is more interesting to mention that out of this percentage, the 81,4% (p<0.05) are currently not using technology-based tools at all in their educational settings, emphasizing the willingness of students to integrate technology-based instructions in their classrooms.

Results

The quantitative results for this question definitively

indicate that the majority of the ESP students have a positive attitude towards the use of technology in their courses. The results are therefore in compliance with the findings of a prior study by Demetriades et al. (2003), which also provided significant

results. The main objective of this study was to investigate ESP students’ attitude towards the use of technology in their courses. The students overall, had a very good

perception of technology-based instruction, as well as willingness to implement it into their lessons.

Discussion & Conclusion

To sum up, this study was concluded that

although the willingness to use technology in universities is adequate, the technology use is limited. The ESP students’ attitude to technology is positive. However, a further study focusing on the application of such tools with a student sample is required. The study recommends that future researchers need to consider the application of a VL (Virtual Learning)

in ESP in a higher education setting.

Any Comments or

Questions!- Masoumeh, Dara, Tahereh & Ghazaleh