designing a novel and high performance online english for business ...

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of activities to achieve their end. Second, users of EBP course identify their own pace of learning.Having read the snippets, learner confirms it or click on next button to see the following URL. There isa timetable button on the right side of “fetching list” that business user can establish an order for thecourse based on confirmed services and a schedule to practice the activities.Evaluation and assessment: A formative evaluation takes place during the lifetime of thecourse [2]. A mini-evaluation undertake in the middle of course and the final evaluation at the end ofthe course. The advantage is that if the mini-evaluation doesn‟t show positive achievements within theparticular activity in fetching list, the student can select another. The evaluation button is located intimetable windows which enable students to avoid less successful aspects in course.2.3 The studyFigure 3. Screenshot for Mashup s‟ fetching listIn this section we just try to testify the course in relation to individual users. Participants inthis study were ten job-experienced Iranian students. All 10 participants took part in the studyvoluntarily. Some of them were students in an English Language Learning Centre. Four of participantswere computer engineers, one bank teller, and five accountants. A checklist proposed by Clarice S.C.Chan [10] was applied for evaluating Mashup functions on the basis of EBP pedagogical considerationto illustrate the value of Mashup component according to the requirement form. Each of theparticipants completed the need analysis form then clicked on the invoke button. Considering thefetching lists, general observations include the following:· The majority of services were suitable for job-experienced learners.· Most of the materials closely fit learner‟s needs that were highly motivating.· Access to authentic material was easier for the learners for example in the case of the needto „negotiate in stock market „some financial news headline from Yahoo! was fetched.· It provides wide choices over activities and services in relationship to learners„professional practice.· It establishes multidisciplinary URL. For example some new models of trades andelectronic commerce that enhance competitiveness of Business English learners werepresented in fetching list.According to these finding we realize that Mashup in online EBP courses is easy enough for areal course implementation. It promotes online learning and creates a supportive environment for EBPlearners.
IV.CONCLUSIONSConsidering the recent movement toward online web-based l Business English courses and thedevelopment of international contact, Users of EBP courses need to use English so that they canachieve more in their job and in e-commerce. In this study, we tried to propose a workable web-basedtraining based on Mashup that allows self-directed, self-paced learning in any topic related to BusinessEnglish. Each step of designing has focused on meeting the needs of the user. The basic innovation inthis paper is applying Mashup for designing Business English web-based training that dynamicallyadapt to the user needs. The course is not restricted to a specific service but, it can benefit from variousonline services or authentic activities available in search engines to enable the users to communicateeffectively in their job. The issue based on Mashup is still open to discussion, especially in expandingcourses for pre-experienced users or the number of participants to run the course for.AcknowledgementsThe first author would like to thank her devoted husband for his comments on this study. Theauthors wish to acknowledge Dr.Farzad Salahshoor for motivating his students towards innovationsand researches on online EBP courses.References[1] Kulathuramaiyer, N, 2007. Mashups: Emerging Application Development Paradigm for a Digital Journal. In:Journal of Universal Computer Science 13(4), 531-542(2007).[2] Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo ST John, 1998. Development in English for Specific purposes, CambridgeUniversity Press. United Kingdom, 7th edition.[3] Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters, 1987. English for Specific purposes a learning - centred approach, CambridgeUniversity Press. United Kingdom, pages 91.[4] Mark Ellis and Christine Johnson, 1994. Teaching Business English, Oxford University Press.[5] Slavica Cepon, 2005, Business English in practical Terms, Scripta Manent(1) 45-54, page 52.[6] Zuocheng Zhang, 2007. Towards an integrated approach to teaching Business English: A Chinese experience. In:English for specific purposes 26(2007)399-410. Available online www.ScienceDirect.com, page 402.[7] D. Merrill. Mashups: The new breed of Web app. 2006.[8] Krassen Stefanov, Roumen Nikolov Faculty of Mathematics and informatics, University of Sofia, page 4.[9] J.B. Arbaugh, Michael R. Godfrey, Marianne Johnson, Birgit Leisen Pollack, Bruce Niendorf, WilliamWresch.Research in the business disciplines: Key findings and possible future directions online and blendedlearning.[10] Clarice S.C. Chan, 2009. Forging a link between research and pedagogy: A holistic framework for evaluatingbusiness English materials. In: English for Specific Purposes 28 (2009) 125–136, available online. www.ScienceDirect.com, pag 1.[11] Shu-Chiao Tsai, 2010. Developing and integrating courseware for oral presentations into ESP learning contexts. In:Computers & Education 55 (2010) 1245–1258, journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu[12] Erhard Rahm, Andreas Thor, David Aumueller. Dynamic Fusion of Web Data, University of Leipzig, Germany,http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de,5th International XML Database Symposium, XSym 2007, Vienna, Austria, September 23-24, 2007 Proceedings pag14.[13] Andreas Thor, David Aumueller, Erhard Rahm, 2007. Data Integration Support for Mashups, University of Leipzig,Germany, Copyright © 2007, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligent (www.aaai.org).
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