International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
the design and content of activity and reported a strong learning effect, not only in terms of engine-specific
vocabulary, but also in terms of technical writing and teamwork. Perhaps most surprising of all was the feedback
that some felt they had acquired a better overall understanding of the working principles of internal combustion
engines in the course of the three-day activity. Indications from the feedback are that students would respond
positively to similar intensive workshops within the ESP courses in the future.
From the instructors’ point of view attendance, attention levels and willingness to engage with classroom
materials increased perceptibly, as did the amount of student talk/interaction. While no formal study of the
retention levels has been carried out to date, students appeared capable of reproducing core vocabulary from the
engine build easily during subsequent activities in the regular, weekly ESP classes.
A further extension of this activity has also been run as an introduction to ESP courses at master’s level at the
same institution, whereby sessions one and two were merged and shortened and the engine build itself was
intended to constitute more of a team building than a vocabulary acquisition activity in the first lesson. Such was
the enthusiasm of the participants for the activity that extra lessons were subsequently timetabled in the
university workshops, where the groups went on to disassemble real engines and transmissions, document the
parts and the disassembly process, and create instruction manuals for their colleagues, based upon which the
components were fully reassembled.
While it may not be possible to incorporate this activity as it stands into every ESP classroom (particularly
where budgets for additional classroom materials may be limited), the authors would argue that there is a strong
argument for investigating and introducing similar forms of hands-on or realia-based activities relevant to the
students’ field of studies into their language classroom.
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