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1 Developing Specialist Reading Comprehension Skills Dr. Dugald Sturges, Federal Office of Languages Hrth, Germany BILC Professional Seminar Stockholm, Sweden 17 October 2013

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Developing Specialist Reading Comprehension Skills What skills are required of Specialist Readers? Standard Language Proficiency vs./in addition to English for Special Purposes (ESP) Extensive vs. Intensive reading Developing credible reading comprehension tasks Challenges of designing technical reading comprehension lessons Incongruity of standard proficiency levels and required specialist reading tasks

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What skills are required of Specialist Readers? e.g. Aviators (ICAO certification) Mechanics (Technical-logistic English) Mentors, Observers (Pre-Deployment courses) Medical personnel Legal advisors Military Chaplaincy Etc. A wide variety of professional tasks require specialist reading skills in addition to a Standardized Language Profile

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What skills are required of Specialist Readers? Each of these different professional tasks have their own individual specialist reading skills requirements. Each of these different professional learner groups have their own relationship to language learning Each ESP group is different and requires a tailor made curriculum.

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Or as the Kaiser put it: "Die Schweden sind keine Hollnder, das hat man ganz genau gesehen. " (The Swedes are not the Dutch, you could see that clearly) Franz Beckenbauer, 2000 5 On the same token, mechanics are not chaplains and therefore require different strategies for learning specialist reading

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6 Specialist language aims at functional asks, but may require the conveyance of abstract concepts, specialist terminology or use of more advanced structural devicesas appropriate to the users professional field.Specialist language aims at functional tasks, but may require the conveyance of abstract concepts, specialist terminology or use of more advanced structural devices as appropriate to the users professional field. The task may be within the SLP Level 2 range, but the language required to perform that task may be more sophisticated.The task may be within the SLP Level 2 range, but the language required to perform that task may be more sophisticated. Language proficiency is not a value unto itself, but is inextricably embedded in the performance of a particular professional task. What makes specialist language special?

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Content Language Acquisition vs General Language Acquisition ESP aims at conveying: a) abilities required for successful communication in occupational settings; content language acquisition dominatesb) content language acquisition dominates s. Dudley Evans and St. John: Developments in ESP: A multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge: CUP, 1998. ESP may be restricted as to the language skills to be learned (e.g. reading only - mechanics) It also may be restricted in terms of standardized lexis (e.g. air traffic controllers) General language competency is often incongruous to occupational experience.General language competency is often incongruous to occupational experience.

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Some attributes of technical texts Cognitive / appellative information dominates Aesthetic / emotional information not so relevant The grammar book is turned upside down; advanced level structures are often encountered before everyday forms 8

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The Role of Standard Reading Proficiency Effective reading comprehension requires not only accurate reading skills but also automatic and fluent reading ability. Automaticity - the ability to identify, at the single word level quickly, accurately and effortlessly. The speed and accuracy with which words are identified as a predictor of text comprehension (Wallace, 2010). Wood, Flowers, and Grigorenko (2001) suggest that fluency involves the prediction of what comes next in the text.

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Reading extensive or intensive? Extensive: Reading for overall understanding Longer text segments Less worry about individual words and turns of phrase Going with the flow of ideas -what we primarily do in standard proficiency reading exercises Cf. Scrivener,J. Learning Teaching. Heinemann, 1994, p. 152-3. 10

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Reading extensive or intensive? Intensive: Reading for specific, precise information Shorter text segments Attention to pertinent technical terms and grammatical structures Understanding in detail -What ultimately must be done in reading exercises for special technical purposes 11

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Reading extensive or intensive? Teaching tasks should begin with extensive exercises for fluency, but then directly follow with intensive exercises for accuracy. 1.Pre-reading vocabulary and structural exercises based on the texts to be used. 2.Reading for gist automatize learned structures 3. Reading for accuracy in realistic tasks 12

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Course objective: To develop English language skills in order to prepare mechanics for technical training in English. Skills enabling: - To enable the participants to discuss technical matters with foreign colleagues in English. - To enable them to read and understand English- language technical documentation, with particular emphasis on Maintenance Manuals, Alert Service Bulletins, Airworthiness Directives and Electronic Parts Catalogues Example of a technical reading course

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14 Detailed information about the measures to be taken is to be found in the EASA Airworthiness Directive named above Example of a real technical reading challenge German Airworthiness Directive

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Students implement what they have learned in diagnostic / descriptive tasks Follow up with practical tasks

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Challenges of designing technical reading comprehension lessons Training technicians, NOT linguists Often lower level language student little interest in languaging So why cant you just give us a word list? Translation is not a goal, it is an aid for understanding. Interested in doing things with words Transfer to real(istic) work situations essential 16

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Typical trainwrecks in ESP reading comprehension teaching Teaching Latin Grammar-translation cramming. Teaching Shakespeare Ignoring the course goal and doing something fun (all practice is not good practice) Teaching from the rack Commercial Technical English books and materials Teaching Shop the technician who does a bit of language on the side

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ASD Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) One word - one meaning Sentence length of no more than 25 words. Paragraph length of no more than 6 sentences. Noun cluster length of 3 words or less. Avoiding missing articles Unapproved verbal auxiliaries (passive, progressive, perfect, modals). Unapproved -ing participles. Only one command per sentence. The theoretical solution: Simplified Technical English

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Forty-six service outlets are provided throughout the aircraft to supply power for electronic/electrical maintenance equipment and for small appliance use. All outlets are energized whenever power is supplied to the aircraft electrical system. All AC outlets are 400 cycle. Six 2-prong, 28 VDC service outlets, located at the pilot, copilot, TACCO, NAV/COMM, port aft observer, and starboard aft observer stations are provided. Four additional outlets supply 115 VAC power to four-pin receptacles for the pilot, copilot, port aft observer, and starboard aft observer. Phase A, 115 VAC is supplied to twenty outlets throughout the aircraft including one 4- pin receptacle located in the forward radar rack to test the T-414 AMAC control box. The remaining outlets are 3-prong. In addition, eleven 3-prong outlets supply phase B alternating current. The top and bottom outlets at the galley are also 3-prong and appliance power is supplied from the three phases of the main AC bus B through the galley circuit breaker in the main load center to individual circuit breakers in the port aft circuit breaker panel. The reality: Creative Technical English

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Summary Needs analysis, regular checks and mid-course corrections essential Methods which build on the specialist intelligence of the learners to establish a bridge to increase linguistic awareness. Stress on hands-on activities using realia and graphic material to simulate a working situation Task-based exercises which employ mathematical, analytical and diagnostic tasks Concentration on the language structures actually encountered in work documents So how do we teach Technical Reading?

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Some final observations Access trumps knowledge: We cannot teach students all aspects of a technical system But we can give them the tools to find the information themselves. We can assist them by familiarizing them with the typical language of documents they will have to work with. 21

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Tack fr att ni lyssnade!