Teaching English to students of science and technology

The teaching of English for Science and Technology (EST) is generally regarded as one of the most significant developments in English language pedagogy in recent years. EST is concerned with meeting the specific language needs of learners in various scientific and technological fields. These needs should be taken into consideration when planning and implementing English language courses or specialized courses to students of science and technology. This research is an attempt to investigate some of the problems involved in the teaching and learning of EST and suggest possible solutions. The research will focus on the reading comprehension of scientific and technical texts written in English, the teaching and learning of functional grammar, and the teaching and learning of lexis. These are regarded as some of the most important skills and sub-skills to be acquired by the students of science and technology to help them gain scientific information in English and reach a satisfactory level of achievement in their academic studies. The contention here is that it is in need to adopt a new set of assumptions and criteria specifically relevant to EST instead of employing those of General-English courses being used in the foundation and non-foundation years. This is in line with the basic premise of ESP (English for Special Purpose) and foundation courses which are supposed to prepare students for longer and more difficult tasks in their relevant fields of study. It is hoped that the findings of this research paper will be fruitful and relevant to other ESP courses in addition to those of EST.

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