As Languages for Specific Purposes have always been defined as student-oriented, the rationale behind this volume is to use the rather neglected niche of the other necessary agent of language instruction and thus focus on the LSP practitioner. This turn towards the instructor has been motivated by the fact that a great number of LSP practitioners enter their jobs without previous expertise. They lack LSP education, or they may not even have a background in applied linguistics. This motivation has proven valid as many of the volume's contributors have faced this particular situation in their professional lives. For insights into the LSP field and guidelines on the best practices, they must rely on their colleagues who offer to share their experience through workshops, conferences, or papers, which is what this volume provides.
The primary goal of this volume is to present considerations of what challenges LSP practitioners face and should be prepared for in their jobs and to provide practice-tested methodological guidelines on such demanding teaching techniques as blended and flipped learning or tandem learning. All papers have been written by LSP practitioners and researchers in higher education. Thus, this volume provides both guidance and self-reflection. In other words, it is written by experienced LSP practitioners for aspiring LSP practitioners about how they see themselves and what effort they make to meet the challenges of their jobs.
As proof that LSP practice is a global challenge, papers have been collected from many European countries, the USA, Uruguay. Even though most papers are naturally concerned with English, being the lingua franca of today, the collection also features guidelines for teaching Spanish, French and Dutch for specific purposes. Moreover, the target disciplines these languages are taught for encompass business, engineering, sociology or medicine, thus supporting the assumption of the universal character of problems LSP practitioners deal with.
About the Author :
Martina Vránová was a recipient of the Hlavinka Fellowship from the Czech Educational Foundation of Texas at Texas A&M University, where she earned her M.A. in English. In 2010, she received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. She is currently Assistant Professor of English at the Institute of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology. She has taught ESP at various levels and areas for almost fifteen years. Her other research interests include academic writing, rhetoric, and contemporary fiction. She has co-edited conference proceedings, 'Languages for Specific Purposes in Higher Education' (2017), and a volume of literary and cultural studies papers, 'Crime and Detection in Contemporary Culture' (2018), as well as published two novels in Czech.
Review :
"This manuscript takes a fresh look at LSP from a practical standpoint, delving into the related literature and bringing new data and current practices into the light. It allows LSP practice as well as practitioners to be the objects of some well-deserved attention. It is particularly refreshing to discover LSP practice from a range of countries, as well as from various LSP fields and languages. Although a majority of the considered cases refer to ESP, it is nice to find such an inclusive compilation that brings other languages into the spotlight.
As an LSP practitioner, this book brought me the reassurance that I was not the only one questioning areas such as professional development, material and course design and -more generally- my role as an educator in the 21st century. It also brought me inspiration and fresh ideas from fellow LSP practitioners from around the world and a range of very different contexts.
I believe this book will be a useful resource for language teachers new to LSP, as it provides a lot of information that I wish I had been given access to when I started my career in that field. It will also be a fantastic companion to the more experienced classroom practitioner, programme leader or language centre director as it will encourage all of them to reflect on their practice, their continuing professional development and their general engagement with a field that is constantly growing in significance in Higher Education and beyond.
David Tual
Director
Centre for Languages and Inter-Communication (CLIC)
Cambridge University Department of Engineering
