Blended Learning seems the Best for ESP?

ICAO-Based Needs Assessment in Thailand’s Aviation Industry: A Basis for Designing a Blended Learning Program

Dondon Parohinog, Chaithat Meesri

This is an interesting study conducted at Aviation Personnel Development Institute, Kasem Bundit University, in Thailand. It concerned on students’ needs assessment of English teaching and learning to maximize the learning result. Quantitative data was collected through survey questionnaire to find out aviation students’ opinions about language descriptions set by ICAO namely: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, comprehension, and interaction. The study revealed the need for a Blended Learning Program. The focus groups and interviews resulted in the need for higher English proficiency. Meanwhile, the ranked preferred topics were airline and air crew, airport, aircraft, air traffic control and aviation authority respectively. A set of online tools is the alternative the students would like to have in their language learning.

Parohinog, D., & Meesri, C. (2015). ICAO- Based Needs Assessment in Thailand ’ s Aviation Industry : A Basis for Designing a Blended Learning Program. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences (Vol. 208). Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.202

Another Needs Analysis Study in ESP

Needs Analysis on English Language Use in Tourism Industry

Nawamin Prachanant

This is a study on needs analysis for ESP curriculum, surveying the needs, functions and problems of English language use by 40 tourism employees. Through questionnaire, data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The researcher found that speaking is most important, then listening, reading and writing. Meanwhile, the three most relevant functions in using English language were: giving information, providing services, and offering help. Whereas their problems in using English included; inability to understand foreigners’ accents, inappropriate words and expressions, inadequate vocabulary, and lack of grammar knowledge. Although this study represented tourism industry, I believe the sort of condition and problems were mostly encountered by most ESP students in other sectors.

Prachanant, N. (2012). Needs Analysis on English Language Use in Tourism Industry, 66, 117–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.253

Again, ESP Materials Not Meet the Students' Need

Analyzing English Language Learning Needs among Students in Aviation Training Program

Parvin Karimi, Reza Vahdani Sanavi

This curriculum development study applied mixed research methods: qualitative and quantitative, seeking for the learners needs in ESP course at an Aviation Training Program. The researchers used questionnaire and interviews to record the needs and problems. They found that the students still have low English proficiency  on the target skills: speaking and listening, and that the current course is far from their expectation and less effective in its implementation. As the students needed to improve their listening and speaking skills, the material (books) and class activities should lead the students’ to that way. This study leads the researchers, teachers, and syllabus-designers to evaluate curriculum development and implementation in ESP class to address learners’ needs. This is very crutial to help the student learn what they should learn.

Karimi, P., & Vahdani, R. (2014). Analyzing English Language Learning Needs among Students in Aviation Training Program. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 98, 852–858. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.491

A Study on Realistic Dialogues in the Airport

English for Airport Ground Staff

Joan Cutting

This is the article cited by several papers about aviation English. It presents structural-functional  analysis on the realistic dialogues of security guards, ground handlers, catering staff, and bus drivers, mainly about the English tenses they used and how they differred each other. This research involved native speaker linguists and English teachers in their official visit at British and French airport. They found that security guards, ground handlers, and bus drivers at many times used ‘will-future’ when they refer to law or rule, or offer action. Security guards and bus drivers often utter direct orders, enforce the law and rule the passengers. Offers and requests and other hospitality expression also formal address forms are very important features for catering staff and bus driver. Ground handler will perform more routine conversation than soft interaction. This study helps ESP teacher especially teaching airport ground staff to arrange the language materials for their students. However, it would be a little challenging if the class consists of students with various target working-position.

Cutting, J. (2012). English for Specific Purposes English for airport ground staff. English for Specific Purposes, 31(1), 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2011.06.002

When ESP Materials Need Improvement

English Materials and Their Relevance to the Needs of Pharmacy Students 

(A Case Study at a School of Pharmacy in Bandung – Indonesia)

Fauzy Rahman Kosasih

This article brought an insight to me about an ESP implementations. Through questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis, the researcher looked for the students’ need and expectation beside things need to improve. He found that the syllabus met the needs of the students, however, the material needed improvement. Of four language skills analyzed, she found out that speaking was the most needed skill, even though the students stated that they still had problem within all skills. In addition, there were some in materials the teacher prepared were not relevant with the students’ need, even far from their subject. This showed that ESP materials need an improvement to help students learn something valuable even though it is just for a short term. I am now more interested to look for other areas of ESP to see how things work in the classroom. Are the students really learning English that will be used in their job in the future?

ASIA EFL January 2017 

ESP in Indonesia Got a very Little Attention

Research and Trends of ESP in Indonesia

Kun Aniroh Muhrofi-Gunadi

The researcher took the data from the Proceedings of International Conference of TEFLIN (Teaching English as Foreign Language in Indonesia) held in 2011, till 2014, to find out the dynamics of ESP trends. She found that the number of ESP researches decreased year by year, and that the method mostly used is need analysis. There are more studies needed, especially with the method of etnography, lingua franca, and corpus. This article also provides comparison of those aforementioned methods, and classification of the method used in the selected papers. EAP (English for Academic Purpose was dominaning, and it is proved that the ESP topic especially EOP (English for Occupational Purpose) seemed not really popular in Indonesia. Even though the era of AEC (ASEAN Economy Comunity) has been developing, the importance of ESP has not been anticipated in Indonesia. This is the challenge of Indonesian ESP instructors and practitioners to develop its curriculum and teaching-learning quality.

ASIA EFL January 2017 

the article source

A Helpful Research Method for My Topic

Development of Task-Based English Oral Communication Course

for EFL Undergraduate Tourism Students

Nisita Rittapirom

I found this study focused on the material development in ESP context, to teach tourism students in Songkhla Rajabhat University, Thailand. To gain information about the target tasks frequently performed by hotel front desk, how language is used in reality, oral communicative problems, and the communicative strategies, the researcher did an in-depth need analysis from semi-structured interviews with 15 hotel managerial positions and 20 working alumni in hotel industry. She also used questionnaire to gather information from 60 senior tourism students with field experience, documentary research, and site observation. She listed the course components, language features and intelligibility, also verbal and non-verbal communication skills. This research is very helpful for ESP curriculum development, and as the example of the study I wanted to conduct; in aviation industry. However, document study and site observation will be the challenges for me. 

Asian EFL Journal, 2017

Hello, Again!

Hello, world!

I know it has been a very long time I left you in emptiness. You might want to know what is new about me. Well, I have been through so many things since I left the U.S in June last year. I guess I owe you a lot of stories to tell, a thousands of pictures to post. Don't worry, I am going to share them later.

Anyway, here is the video if you wanted to watch it so bad:

Click this link for video of my memorable year in Newark, DE :)

And the other things I need to tell you is that I have been married with a super lovable guy and now enjoying my life as a graduate student at Sebelas Maret University started from February 2017.

You know what one of my goals for now is?

To graduate from UNS in August 2018.

...beside other dreams in my head.

May Allah grant us grace and happiness. Aamiin.

I'll see you later.

P.S.: After this, I'm going to flood you with some academic journal reviews. Enjoy! :P