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ESP for the 21st Century: providing a bridge between university and the workplace: English for Professional Purposes at the University of Verona
May 10, 2022 @ 19:00 - 20:00
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3rd Meeting of TESOL-Italy and TESOL-Ukraine Join Project “Sharing Context Between Cultures”
TIME: May 10th 2022, 7.00 pm (Ukrainian time)
TITLE: ESP for the 21st Century: providing a bridge between university and the workplace: English for Professional Purposes at the University of Verona by Sharon Hartle and Valeria Franceschi
Zoom link to the session: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/8575070872?pwd=N21TNnNDNjRYMkFYSEdIdXViMzE3dz09
ABSTRACT:
One problem related to ESP teaching which has often been underlined is the lack of a systematic framework
(Littlewood 2014; Ennis & Petrie 2020). Developing such a framework involves focusing on two major aspects:
the curriculum or teaching aims of the course and its pedagogy. This presentation focuses on the case study
of ‘English for the World of Work’, an English for Professional Purposes course designed to improve key
language competencies required for the Italian world of work. It is a blended learning course developed at
Verona University to meet the needs both of university students and of professional practitioners. In the five
editions of the course, productive skills have been promoted. The course, however, aims to go beyond the
development of such skills focusing also on the development of learner communication skills from the
viewpoint of the multimodal; students have been trained to develop both awareness of and competence in
multimodal communication skills related to the visual, gestural, and spatial modes. The presentation
illustrates the blended learning framework that was developed, which provides in-class scaffolding and
online support; this alsofosters learnerautonomy for students in theiracquisition of key Communication
Strategies.
Ennis, M., & Petrie, G. (Eds.). (2020). A response to disparate/desperate circumstances. In M. Ennis & G. Mikel
Petrie (Eds.), Teaching English for Tourism: bridging research and praxis. (pp. 1–6). Routledge.
Littlewood, W. (2014) Methodology for teaching ESP. In V. Bhatia and S. Bremner (Eds.), The Routledge
Handbook of Language and Professional Communication, London and New York, Routledge.
Bio:
Sharon Hartle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Verona
University. She is specialized in English Language Teaching (ELT) pedagogy and didactics and works specifically
in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). She has worked for some years in the field of e-learning and
specializes in multimedia material development for ELT in Blended Learning contexts. Her research interests
also extend to include English Language Assessment and English Medium Instruction (EMI).
Valeria Franceschi is a temporary assistant professor in English Language and Translation at the Department
of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Verona. Her research focuses on English as a Lingua
Franca, especially in relation to plurilingual practices and on the business context (BELF). Her research areas
of interest also include corpus linguistics and, more recently, tourism discourse.