STEM English in Japan: Education, Innovation, and Motivation

390 Pages·2022·6.231 MB·English

by  Glen Hill, Joseph Falout, Matthew Apple

S TEM English
in Japan
Education, Innovation,
and Motivation
Edited by
Glen Hill · Joseph Falout · Matthew Apple
STEM English in Japan
“A must-read for all involved in STEM education in Japan. The volume offers
well-grounded research in every aspect of English education and learning, all
situated in the communities of practice of STEM disciplines. This book sets
the standard going forward both in research findings and in pedagogical
applications.”
—William Rozycki, Research Fellow, International Center for Intercultural
Communication, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
“This book provides an authentic and valuable discussion of the complexity
faced by ESP course designers or instructors, in particular, STEM-English
practitioners and stakeholders in academia and the workplace. The book
includes historical background and issues of STEM-English education in
Japan as well as clear examples to increase productivity of approaches for
STEM-English learners, focusing on their needs and motivation.”
—Masako Terui, Ph.D., Faculty of Science and Engineering, Kindai University
· ·
Glen Hill Joseph Falout Matthew Apple
Editors
STEM English
in Japan
Education, Innovation,
and Motivation
Editors
Glen Hill Joseph Falout
Obihiro University of Agriculture College of Science and Technology
and Veterinary Medicine Nihon University
Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan Tokyo, Japan
Matthew Apple
College of Letters
Ritsumeikan University
Kyoto, Japan
ISBN 978-3-031-11115-0 ISBN 978-3-031-11116-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11116-7
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We editors would like to dedicate this book to our spouses and children.
They have supported us with an unending indelible spirit as we strove to
create this reference work. As we conducted late-night planning and
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Foreword
Writing this foreword for STEM English in Japan: Education, Innovation,
and Motivation gives me great pleasure. As an ESP researcher who has
spent his career not only living and working in Japan but also focusing
much of his research on STEM-English communication, this is a book
that I have always hoped would be written and will certainly keep in a
prominent position in my bookcase now that it is completed.
As I write in my own book Introducing English for Specific Purposes
(Anthony, 2018), from its very earliest days, the English for Specific
Purposes (ESP) approach has been closely connected with the disciplines
of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The
origins of the ESP approach to language teaching can be traced back
to the rapid rise in international business and trade that started after
World War II. At the time, the economies and infrastructure of many
countries across the world had been destroyed, but those of the USA,
Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK, were largely intact. As a result,
these mainly English-speaking countries became key players in the effort
to rebuild the world economy. Many business opportunities began to
emerge for English-based companies and workers, with technology and
vii
viii Foreword
technical expertise in the form of manuals, reports, training seminars,
and so on, becoming a commodity that could be exported to Europe,
Africa, and Asia. The growth of ESP can also be traced back to the
rise in collaborative, international research endeavors that started around
the same time. Results from these studies needed to be disseminated
to the largest possible audience, and so English publications were the
natural choice. Of course, reading about high-level research in a second
or foreign language is no easy task, and writing up research in a second or
foreign language is an even greater challenge. As a result, strong academic
English reading and writing skills became a defining factor for success in
academia.
Naturally, many early proponents of the ESP approach focused on
identifying and teaching vocabulary and grammar patterns that charac-
terized STEM language. Indeed, in the early years, ESP was synonymous
with English for Scientific Purposes, and to some degree the percep-
tion still holds today, especially in Japan. The strong connection between
ESP and STEM disciplines is reflected in many of the early articles that
have appeared in premier journal of the field The ESP Journal (later
renamed English for Specific Purposes Journal ), with the very first issue
of the journal featuring the article “The use of slides in biomedical
speeches” (Dubois, 1980), and the second issue featuring the article “On
the use of the passive in two astrophysics journal papers” (Tarone et al.,
1981). Today, however, few consider ESP to be just about the vocab-
ulary and grammar of STEM subjects. I believe that ESP should be
considered to be a more general eclectic approach to language teaching
that combines ideas from communicative language teaching, task-based
language teaching, project-based learning, and many other teaching
methodologies into a consistent whole. In Introducing English for Specific
Purposes, I define ESP in the following way:
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is an approach to language teaching
that targets the current and/or future academic or occupational needs of
learners, focuses on the necessary language, genres, and skills to address
these needs, and assists learners in meeting these needs through the
use of general and/or discipline-specific teaching materials and methods.
(Anthony, 2018, pp. 10–11)
Foreword ix
The definition I use highlights the fact that ESP prioritizes the needs
of learners. These needs can be broken down into three components:
necessities (what learners have to do to achieve their communicative
goals), lacks (what the learners cannot do yet), and wants (what learners
hope to do). However, it is important to remember that a successful
ESP course must also consider the needs of all other stakeholders in
the learning environment, including those of the instructor, the admin-
istrator(s), and the institution where the course is held. But, what exactly
are those needs? And, how best can an ESP course designer create a
course that addresses those needs? And, how should ESP instructors
manage the classes and motivate students to strive to achieve the goals
of an ESP course?
I am delighted to see that STEM English in Japan: Education, Inno-
vation, and Motivation is the first book on ESP that attempts to address
all these important questions as they relate to STEM disciplines in a
Japanese context. Through the four sections of the book, the authors
survey the English used in Japanese STEM workspaces and educational
settings, consider the perceptions of learners and other stakeholders, and
present real-world ESP course designs that have proved to be successful.
As I would expect, one of the main areas that the book focuses on is
the needs of the various stakeholders. In STEM settings, ESP course
designers and instructors can often struggle to identify the communi-
cation needs of the learners, because the learners themselves might be
unaware of their language necessities, especially if they are aiming to enter
the workplace. It follows that they will also be unaware of their lacks,
and even their wants may be misplaced. Also, specialist informants from
the target disciplines, e.g., professors in academia or company workers
in industry, may be difficult to contact, and even if they are available,
they may not see the value of participating in a language-focused study.
To understand stakeholder needs in different STEM-English settings,
the chapter authors adopt a variety of approaches including empirical
survey-based studies of stakeholders in academia and the workplace, case
studies of learners in different study environments, and long-term ethno-
graphic studies focusing on the unique and changing needs of individual
x Foreword
STEM-English users. These ethnographic studies are particularly rare in
the field, despite being strongly advocated by ESP researchers, such as
Brian Paltridge, Sue Starfield, and Christine Tardy (see Paltridge et al.,
2016).
I feel that one very unique feature of STEM English in Japan: Educa-
tion, Innovation, and Motivation is that it not only focuses on the needs
of stakeholders but also the perceived self-identities of STEM-language
learners at the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as those in the
workplace. This information is neatly presented in combination with
the results of other studies that investigate how learners perceive the
role of English in their academic and career success, leading to impor-
tant insights into learner motivation and suggestions for which teaching
materials and methods might prove effective. Further insights about
course design can be gained from the detailed descriptions of STEM-
English courses described in the book. Courses designed specifically
for different academic and workplace settings in a variety of fields are
discussed, with attention given to the creation and use of simplified,
semi-authentic, and authentic materials.
Importantly, though, the issues, challenges, and solutions offered in
the book have important implications far beyond the borders of Japan.
This is because the needs of the various stakeholders in Japan often
closely match those of stakeholders in many other countries where
English is used as a second or foreign language. To the end, the authors in
the book discuss results of ESP studies that extend far beyond the borders
of Japan to include work from Europe, North and South America, the
Middle East, and Asia.
The ESP approach to language teaching is one of the most estab-
lished English Language Teaching (ELT) approaches. Its principles and
methods are supported by over 50 years of research and practice, and
it is perhaps the most influential of all language teaching approaches
in academic settings and the workplace. Nevertheless, it is an approach
that is constantly evolving, and many improvements and insights are still
to be made. To this end, the book STEM English in Japan: Education,
Innovation, and Motivation serves as a very important addition to the
Foreword xi
growing body of ESP work and should be a valuable resource to all those
researching and working in the field.
Laurence Anthony
Waseda University
Tokyo, Japan
References
Anthony, L. (2018). Introducing English for specific purposes . Routledge.
Dubois, B. L. (1980). The use of slides in biomedical speeches. The ESP
Journal, 1(1), 45–50.
Paltridge, B., Starfield, S., & Tardy, C. M. (2016). Ethnographic perspectives on
academic writing. Oxford University Press.
Tarone, E., Dwyer, S., Gillette, S., & Icke, V. (1981). On the use of the passive
in two astrophysics journal papers. The ESP Journal, 1(2), 123–140.