The development of a program and curriculum for instruction in technical English for Saudi Arabian petrochemical plant operator trainees studying in the United States for two years was undertaken by the University of South Alabama's English Language Center. The program was designed to accommodate (1) the degree of skills and prior learning of the…

While the need to strengthen the transfer of language skills across disciplines and to integrate language instruction with other components of the curriculum is recognized, it must also be recognized that the language of science has a set of symbols that are different from those that are learned for daily life, and the structures of the two…

A corpus of 15 articles from 5 leading medical journals was used to examine how the communicative purpose of the different rhetorical sections of research papers and case reports in medical English written discourse influences the frequency and category distribution of the modulation devices (hedges) used in each section. (57 references)…

Biologists at Center for Biological Research found ways to improve their scientific writing without benefit of an English-language program. By tapping Internet biology forums for comprehensible input, and using computer-assisted retention strategy to profit from error correction, writing improved. Scientific dialog on Internet has helped group…

This paper presents the results of a review of 26 research articles, discussing the importance, frequency, and realization of hedges in science research article. It also considers why students find hedging so difficult to master and raises implications thereof. The need to present scientific claims with precision and caution means that hedges are…

This report contains a collection of articles that document the evolution of English for Science and Technology (EST) instruction and research--one of the earliest and most active branches of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Articles included are: (1) "WWW-Based Instruction for EST" (Roy Bowers); (2) "English for Medical Purposes in Mexico: A…

This manual is part of a series of materials designed to reinforce essential concepts in physical science through interactive, language-sensitive, problem-solving exercises emphasizing cooperative learning. The materials are intended for limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in beginning physical science classes. The materials are for teams of…

Outlines and illustrates an approach to the teaching of research English on a group basis which derives from four bodies of literature: (1) the sociology of science, (2) citation analysis, (3) technical writing, and (4) English for academic purposes. This approach gives the ESL instructor insight into the students' research writing processes and…

The faculty of chemistry at the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile, developed an English-for-specific-purposes syllabus for students after eliciting faculty members' opinions about teaching methods and instructional materials, subsequently balancing institutional and faculty members' needs and motivations for the program. (CB)

In business correspondence and technical communications, lack of coherence can cause serious misunderstanding. This paper examines how the problem of generating coherence is addressed in English for Business and Technology textbooks. It proposes a cognitive approach to skill building and presents a teaching procedure for doing so. (Contains two…

Provides a rationale for considering English for specific purposes in terms of "appropriate technology"; surveys the philosophical and intellectual underpinnings of the appropriate technology movement; defines key terms and clarifies them with language teaching examples; and briefly considers some objections to the notion of appropriate…

This paper discusses how a native English-speaking scientist should write and how they actually write scientific articles. This is complemented by considering the aspects of English that journal editors reported as influencing their assessment of manuscripts submitted by second language authors. Some of the ways in which native language and…

This article compares the communication strategies used by representatives of two generations of French scientists (pre- and postcommunicative language teaching) in the writing of research articles in English-language scientific journals. It focuses on the relationships between general argumentative language and hard-core mathematical language in…

One teacher's experience in providing individualized instruction in English to a manager in the German coal mining industry is reported. The highly motivated manager required specialized skills in English for communicating with foreign visitors who were either members of the industry or lay people. The manager brought with him to the first meeting…

Learner needs in English for academic purposes were analyzed in terms of the strategic competence needed to successfully carry out required work in an undergraduate physics laboratory, including: evaluating and selecting information; synthesizing information; applying information to different situations; and establishing working relationships with…