What can a foreign language textbook for Engineering majors be like? A case of developing and evaluating its sociocultural content

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of a tertiary foreign language textbook for Engineering majors in the Russian context. The motivation for the research comes from the fact that despite numerous academic publications about the need for developing a modern foreign language textbook for technical universities, the problem still remains unsolved, especially, in relation to the development of the textbook’s sociocultural content that would meet the communicative needs in the professional setting. The present study aimed at presenting and validating the framework for the sociocultural representation using the learners’ and experts’ evaluations. The research questions explored types of sociocultural representation in two piloted English textbooks. Then the authors focused on students’ ability to identify the cross-cultural aspect of foreign language communication and sociocultural content in the textbooks. Finally, the research examined the feedback from experts and master students with some cross-cultural communication experience in their workplaces, which helped to evaluate the sociocultural representation in both textbooks. A total of 31 university students participated in the online survey. Data at the qualitative stage of the study were obtained from interviews. The findings show the prevalence of communication-based tasks and materials over knowledge-based ones. Besides, the learners’ and experts’ positive evaluations confirmed the sufficiency of the sociocultural representation. Being limited by the context of automotive Engineering majors, the study suggests a possible approach for designing sociocultural content of a foreign language textbook for Engineering students.

Keywords

• foreign language textbook
• automotive engineering majors
• sociocultural content
• cross-cultural communication