Transfer From Learning English To Teaching Academic Subjects In English

Literature review

Hutmacher (1996), when formulating the idea of a communicative competence for the Council of Europe, defined five sets of key competencies: the mastery of languages and new technologies, listening to and taking into account others’ points of view, relating the past to the present and the capacity to face uncertainty and complexity. The Council of Europe attached particular importance, to competencies relating to the mastery of oral and written communication, which are essential for work and social life to the point that those who lack them are henceforward threatened with social exclusion.

Since the beginning of the 21st century there have been wide discussions pertaining to the recent changes in language training. Great contribution to this activity has been made by TESOL - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages - an International Association, the largest professional organization for teachers of English as a second or foreign language. It is worth mentioning that the demand for English language learning has never been greater than at the present moment.

Boraie (2013), former TESOL President, states that recently there have occurred some significant changes in teaching English to people whose first language is not English (English as a Foreign Language - EFL) or English as a second language (ESL), or to people whose native language is not English but who live in a society in which English is one of the main languages. Furthermore, English has become a means to learn content such as science and mathematics.

Penny Ur, a renowned EFL ‎expert, author and teacher trainer noted that nowadays the goal is “to produce fully competent English-knowing bilinguals rather than imitation native speakers”.

The significance of English and the way English teachers delimit and design their environment is undeniable and has received wide coverage in the world community.

Nowadays educationalists put much emphasis on the importance of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary (some scholars use the synonymous term crossdisciplinary) approach in teaching. However, a clear distinction should be made between multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. The study of Petrie (1992) defines multidisciplinarity as “the idea of a number of disciplines working together on a problem, an educational program, or a research study. The effect is additive rather than integrative”. Choi and Pak (2006) single out the code words for multidisciplinary (1), interdisciplinary (2) and transdisciplinary (3) as additive (1), interactive (2), and holistic (3), respectively. By the word holistic (the parts of something are intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole) they mean that transdisciplinarity integrates several sciences. Furthermore, they infer that transdisciplinary approach suggests that each of the disciplines involved goes beyond their traditional range.

Educational experience of Stepanyan et al. (2017) shows that the use of a transdisciplinary approach, especially within the framework of content and language integrated learning process, has facilitated solving the problems in analyzing the information by combining the knowledge extracted from various disciplines.

Nowadays pedagogy of education and professional training drifts in the direction of mastering the competencies of bachelors and masters in the analysis of relevant information, the use of appropriate techniques and writing dissertations in the main academic disciplines, which often combine several academic disciplines.

In their research Khalyapina et al. (2017) conclude that the combination of ESP – CLIL – EMI methodologies constitute a model of English language teaching at a modern university, in which the focus of learning a foreign language is gradually shifted from purely linguistic aspects in ESP to tantamount content & language integration in CLIL and further to the dominance of professionally-oriented aspects in EMI.

However, criticism of CLIL has risen recently. Some of the scholars, such as Darn (2006) consider that there is little evidence to show that the comprehension of content is not impeded by lack of language competence. Dallinger et al. (2015) questions the effect of CLIL, “given its null-effect on the content subject and the limited positive outcomes in English”. They think that the alternative to CLIL is the enlarged amount of regular English lessons. The researchers admit the null-effect for subject knowledge but assume that some content subject-related skills might benefit from CLIL. The findings of confirmed previous results of Badertscher and Bieri (2009), Jappinen (2005), Dalton-Puffer and Smit (2013) also showed no differences between CLIL- and non-CLIL-students' achievement.

Discussion and analysis

In this article, we consider the quasi-professional activity, because this stage makes it possible to combine professional context and EMI as Dubinina and Kondrakhina (2016) imply in their research.

The implementation of the tasks within the framework of the given activity should be and in practice is facilitated by the interdisciplinary collaboration: the selection of thematic materials for teaching English in cooperation with teachers of specialized disciplines and in parallel with the study of English-language materials on the basic disciplines at English language workshops.

As rule, a cross-disciplinary educational activity combined with EMI is a transnational educational process and takes place in a multilingual environment. Students study their speciality in a language immersion setting, usually in English and the language of the host country. Professional orientation and digitalization of learning complement this list with the language of a particular academic discipline. For instance, at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation the language of mathematics and information technology is lingua franca for most of the academic subjects. English is used as the language of international communication, and Russian as the language of the host country, which in this case is necessary for those students who do not speak English. The most frequent ratio of these languages at the initial stage is 50/50.

The problems that arise when teaching foreign students have always been in the focus of instructors’ attention. In Russia, strengthening of the state policy on training international students at Russian educational institutions has intensified research in this area. Many universities have established special preparatory departments or faculties, and teachers working with such students reflect on their experience, develop new approaches and methodologies.

Difficulties in teaching foreign students are mostly due to the heterogeneous level of students’ background knowledge. Russian language proficiency is essential for all the students. If they lack it, the way out of this predicament can be the use of English, since a number of students speak English much better than Russian. Bilingual education can improve the efficiency of foreign students' learning of special subjects, mathematical cycle disciplines in particular. Moreover, there is a whole layer of English-language terminology, both in the field of mathematics and in the field of information technology, the latter is important in the light of expanding digitalization.

No doubt, interdisciplinary education as a rule exists in a multi - ethnic environment that is typical for teaching international students. It may be concluded that the most effective way to improve the quality of education and, in general, to study undergraduates at a University on a par with students from the host country, is multilingual education. The coexistence of students with different native languages (L 1) and working foreign languages (L 2) within the framework of the general educational process is a serious challenge that requires interdisciplinary interaction between the teachers of special disciplines and foreign language teachers. Most often, Russian higher education institutions provide training in Russian and English. However, the composition of international students has changed recently, and more and more often there is a need to use other partner languages.

For example, in Portugal, where international students can access undergraduate studies and integrated Master’s studies through a special access and can apply if they have a diploma that allows access to higher education in the country where it was obtained, or if they have completed Portuguese upper-secondary education or an equivalent study cycle, Portuguese as well as English can be used as lingua franca. African Portuguese-speaking countries constitute a sizable number of international students.

The TIE-CLIL project (translanguage in Europe, funded through Socrates - Lingua Action A) promotes plurilingualism through the introduction of Content and Language Integrated Learning in five different EU languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish).

The transition from traditional English language learning to teaching academic subjects in English can be successfully accomplished through content and language integrated learning (CLIL), the essence of which lies in understanding that while learners are studying certain subjects they are also mastering a foreign language (Khalyapina, 2017).

CLIL is closely connected with EMI (English Medium Instruction). As English is a recognized lingua franca, the language of international communication, EMI has a number of benefits both for students and for the University it applies. Firstly, students gain access to international educational programs. Secondly, post-graduates obtain an opportunity to do research abroad or in joint cooperation with international scholars. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, students become more competitive in the labor market (Almazova et al., 2018).

Today, a number of educational programs in Russian universities are implemented in English. Such options exist at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, which enrolls international students, a sizable part of whom are English-speaking. The Financial University works hard to strengthen its international reputation in contacts with international educational institutions and organizations, as well as in the media and on the Internet. Part of these efforts envisage the creation of English-language content of the University, including English-language web resources, printed materials in English, articles for English-language media, portals and other information platforms.

Model 1

In their first year junior students study in the wide context of their future profession and get a general idea of the subject, concepts and terms within the range of their specialty. English is taught with the inclusion of a number of philological aspects, especially, essential Grammar structures.

Below are the examples of the EMI interactive task offered to the students of Economics and Finance at the initial stage.

Illustration 1

A student gets acquainted with a family from a foreign country and compares their personal budget (Table 1 ) with that of his family. The student is to apply mathematical tools to analyze the comparison.

Illustration 2

A student has to complete the chart (Table 2 ). The task is to compute the ratio between income and expenses, to calculate the share of each type of expenses and to suggest ways of correcting the budget.

Illustration 3

Students analyze opportunity costs of economic decisions in order to explain that choices involve tradeoffs. One of the situations is below.

A worker is currently earning €400 for a 40 hour week. The management offer a 12% wage increase or a basic wage of €410 and a reduction in the working week to 38 hours. What is the opportunity cost if the worker chooses a 38 hour week?

• 2 hours;

• 38 hours;

• €38;

• €48.

The following mathematical tools are applied: addition, multiplication and division operations, calculating ratio.

From the point of view of the language propaedutics, the following communicative skills are worked out while solving the given economic problems through EMI:

• building discourse with elements of reasoning, evaluation, criticism;

• recognition and logical linking of main and secondary information;

• arranging a keyword or idea into a piece of discourse;

• creation of a factual chain.

Grammar practice involves working out the use of conditional sentences, numerals, fractions and percentage points.

Model 2

In order to ensure close interaction and appropriate interpenetration of the academic disciplines, it is necessary to find points of intersection between them. This stage of educational process is characterized by a deeper immersion into the context of the specialty. This is quasi-professional activity where interdisciplinary interaction requires the use of the educational technologies capable of activating the professional activities through EMI. Such activity is best implemented by case study and a role-play or a business game to follow.

Below if the example of the case-study considering a debatable economic situation in English (Konnova et al., 2015). Students are offered an economic problem without specifying which mathematical tools should be used, but with a high degree of certainty. The latter is rarely present in cases, so the proposed problems were called case problems. The case task contains three options for investing the capital of young entrepreneurs for a period of 4 years: (a) a small business for the production and sale of a certain product, (b) a portfolio of securities (investment portfolio) and (c) Bank deposits:

1. Small business

Being students, young people had a business idea, for which they prepared a business plan: to open a pizzeria and offer pizza "Margarita" in it.

All expenses are divided into several groups:

Fixed (paid once): equipment, kitchen supplies, etc.

Total: XXX XXX RUB.

Annual : rent (paid at the end of the year), electricity, water, tax.

Total: YYY YYY RUB.

Costs per unit of production : dough, tomatoes, cheese, tax.

Total: ZZ RUB for a pizza.

Salaries :

A pizza-maker receives SS rubles for 100 pizzas and his/her performance is PPPP pizzas per year (depending on demand, an entrepreneur can add more pizza-makers).

Other employees - with a salary of SSSS rubles per year. The equipment can be sold and the business can be closed at the end of each year. Every year it is depreciated by r %.

According to estimates, the demand for products will be as follows:

1st year: $Q_D={\alpha }_1-{\beta }_{1}p$, 2nd year: $Q_D={\alpha }_2-{\beta }_{2}p$,

3rd year: $Q_D={\alpha }_3-{\beta }_{3}p$, 4th year: $Q_D={\alpha }_4-{\beta }_{4}p,{\alpha }_i,{\beta }_i\in R,i=1,2,3,4$.

Instruction . Create a profit function for each year and study it to the maximum to calculate the optimal cost per unit of product.

Thus: Small business requires investment of all funds at once without any remaining balance!

2. Investment portfolio

Young people can invest their money in securities. After making complex calculations, they compiled a table of returns for securities portfolios A, B, and C depending on the economic situation in the Russian Federation (the situation changes every year). Forecast for the next four years:

• the first year is a Bad one (securities are devalued by x %).

• the second year is a Bad one (securities are devalued by x %);

• the third year is very Successful (securities are becoming more expensive by y %).

• the fourth year is a Successful one (securities are becoming more expensive by z %).

Papers in portfolios A, B, and C cost the same: U rubles each (Table 3 ).

Shares are purchased for a minimum of two years, since if they are sold after a year, the Bank retains R% of the original amount invested.

Thus: If you choose to invest in securities, then invest all the funds without a balance!

3. Bank deposits

Young people are also considering the option of investing in a Bank (banks) on real terms (research independently).

Thus: If you choose the option of Bank deposits, then invest all funds without a balance!

Main task:

Develop an optimal investment plan for each year (out of four) of the above options.

What is the maximum profit for young entrepreneurs if they choose the best way to allocate their capital every year (out of four)?

To solve the case, students are recommended to determine the nature of the knowledge needed to solve the problem, make the necessary calculations for each investment option, summarize the results and prepare a justification for the decision. As we can see, this task requires a complex application of economic knowledge, the use of some mathematical apparatus and taking into account interdisciplinary connections.

It is obvious that by solving this case, students master the basic concepts, methods of calculations and research methods of higher mathematics, necessary for the successful solution of mathematical, financial and economic problems, and learn to create mathematical models.

Model 3

In his works on contextual learning, Verbitskiy (2017) analyzes the transformation of the basic forms of students’ activity: from academic activities (an example of which is a lecture, and during which information is transmitted and assimilated) to quasi-professional activities (didactic role-plays, business games, etc.) and, further, to educational and professional activities (research, practice, internships). The contents of the instruction at this stage is governed by the curriculum of a particular discipline and should be the matter of a special investigation. However, it is evident that language skills at the advanced stages, those of quasi-professional or even professional activities, should imply:

• highlighting the key idea, main and secondary information;

• building narratives with elements of reasoning, criticism, evaluation, opinion, argument in oral and written form based on associative thinking;

• recognition and logical linking of main and secondary information;

• deployment a keyword or idea into narration using graphs and diagrams;

• creation of a factual chain with the subsequent monologue or dialogue on this basis.