How linguistically ready are my engineering students to take my ESP courses?

Abstract

This paper analyzes the reasons why in a group of 85 engineering students, some were not able to pass our English for Specific Purposes courses (ESP Surveys One and Two). They took two tests, Grammar Surveys One and Two, and completed a questionnaire, prior to beginning of the courses. The tests focused on grammar points of increasing complexity, and the questionnaire gathered information about factors influencing learner differences. ANOVA analyses showed a significant positive effect of the Grammar Surveys on the ESP Surveys. Amongst the items included in the questionnaire, only one variable, “previous academic performance” (PAP), showed up as having a significant positive effect on the ESP Surveys. It seems then, that the marks obtained in these ESP Surveys depend exclusively upon the results obtained in the Grammar Surveys, and upon the PAP of the students. The findings are discussed in terms of our degree of responsibility in the learning process of our students, and on predictable performance patterns.

Keywords

• courses
• learning process
• adult language learners
• performance predictability