ICT in Teaching ESP to Future Civil Engineers at Technical University

Abstract

The paper analyses new technologies in teaching ESP to future civil engineers in their professional training. The research was held at the National Aviation University (Kyiv, Ukraine) and involved 86 second-year students majoring in “Civil Engineering” who study full-time. The distance learning profession-oriented course on the Moodle platform was applied in the experimental group as well as a set of intellectual games and brainstorming tasks. The study examined how students majoring in civil engineering perceive the implementation of ICT in the ESP learning environment and how these technologies improve students’ ESP proficiency and their readiness for self-educationand lifelong learning. A student survey was held at the end of the experiment. The analysis of the responses in the questionnaire with open-ended questions revealed that students had positive perceptions of using different forms of ICT in the ESP classroom. After establishing the appropriate psychological and pedagogical conditions, the number of students in the experimental group having the productive and creative levels of readiness to use English in their professional activity have significantly increased compared to the control group. On-line learning enhanced students’ motivation for self-study as well as improved their ESP proficiency.