CC BY
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УДК 372.881.111.1 ББК 74.262.21
Ю. М. Демонова
ДУМАЮ, ЧТО НИКОГДА НЕ НАПИШУ СТАТЬЮ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ (НЕКОТОРЫЕ СПОСОБЫ ОПРОВЕРГНУТЬ ЭТО УТВЕРЖДЕНИЕ)
Аннотация. В данной статье автор описывает некоторые методы обучения устному и письменному вариантам научного дискурса на английском языке учащихся с разным уровнем знания языка. Автор дает детальное описание разработанной программы, методов и достигнутых результатов.
Ключевые слова: научный дискурс, устный вариант, письменный вариант, научно-исследовательская статья, секция, презентация, упражнение, метод.
Yu. M. Demonova
I THINK I WILL NEVER WRITE RESEARCH PAPER IN ENGLISH (SOME WAYS TO PROVE THIS ASSUMTION WRONG)
Abstract. In the given research paper the author describes some ways and methods as to how to teach oral and written forms of scientific discourse to attendees with a different level of English. The author gives a detailed analysis of the classes, the methods applied and the achieved results.
Key words: scientific discourse, oral form, written form, research paper, section, presentation, exercise, method.
Summary
It has always been a common knowledge to those who teach languages in general and foreign languages in particular that different types of discourse require different skills. In other words, Technical English, for example is as different from Business or Medical English as one language may be different from another. The aim of this particular study was to prove that Scientific type of discourse of English can be mastered by any person of science with some experience in doing scientific research in their field and even scanty knowledge of English. To prove this point an experimental group of scientists of different investigation fields was gathered. They were taught Scientific English twice a week for three months after which they were supposed to publish a research paper in English. We predicted that the type of discourse under study implies not so much having the skills of natural talk but knowing the principles of carrying out research activity as well as a number of clichés and special vocabulary.
Introduction
The importance of studying English has not been discussed for a long time now simply because that it has already become a universal truth. Moreover, the fact that now Russia is in the process of adapting the whole bulk of its higher education to the international standards demands that Masters and PhDs should perform "up to scratch". To put it in other words there has recently appeared a considerable need for the lectures and professors of the institutions of higher education to be well able to write their research papers in English as well as to present them at International conferences. There two problems appear. First, almost all the mentioned above educators, unless they teach English, have rather scanty knowledge of the language. Second, even if the paper is fist written in Russian and then translated with the help of some on-line application, the fact doesn't make it look like a nice research paper in English. So, what was exactly needed was some systematic training of only several aspects of English which made up the essence of scientific discourse. However it occurred pretty hard to carry out without a tutor's help just because nearly all the textbooks dedicated to the matter were written by English and American writers and required a rather high level of English. One way to overcome the difficulty was to interpret the information given in the textbooks during practical group seminars. The general idea was not to stick to tradition-
al language courses but first, to provide only the information concerning a certain kind of discourse, second, to make the vocabulary of this area as idiomatic as possible. Although quite a number of textbooks were found on this particular subject most of them gave a kind of an outline of general strategy as to how a scientific research is carried out in general. In other words they were written by English and American scientists for English and American Bachelors and Masters. We on the other hand required a different kind of skill; we needed appropriate linguistic means of putting into good English words the results of the research that had already been carried out.
The present paper describes the method that was applied for teaching a group with different level of English basic rules of oral and written forms of scientific discourse. Focusing only on some aspects of linguistic peculiarities and using mostly idioms, clichés and speech patterns helped us to gain sufficient results. As there were almost no practical issues as to how a scientific research is worded in English we had to make use of the textbooks which gave directions given to the would be English and American scientists.
Review of the literature
There exist many books and manuals explaining how to carry out a scientific research written by foreign scientists. Their structure looks more or less the same. In fact, the contents of such issues can be more or less divided into the following sections: 1) how to choose the topic for investigation; 2) how to use literary resources and take notes; 3) how to avoid plagiarism; 4) how to structure a paper; 5) how to present a paper.
Laurie Rozakis in her "Schaum's Quick Guide to Writing Great Research Papers" [4] as well as Jennifer Peat in "Scientific Writing Easy when you know how" [3], Robert Goldbort in "Writing for Science" [2] and probably many other PhDs give a very good bit of practical advice as to how to wri te a scientific research when you already speak the language which is required for it.
Robert Goldbort, for instance, describes peculiarities of different types of research papers and speculates on the special features of each of them. The author mentions Undergraduate Reports and their unique specific features; outlines qualities that define a Scientific Dissertation; speaks about the features of a Scientific Journal Article and guides some parameters in preparing a Scientific Grant Proposal.
Jennifer Peat explains how to write essential parts of scientific research (Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Summary guidelines) but does it in a rather descriptive way, focusing neither on specific ways of putting the mentioned ideas into words nor on idiomatic nature of the language required. Her notes on Style and punctuation though are very detailed and accurate: she dwells on how to use full stops and ellipses, colons and semicolons, commas, apostrophes, parentheses and square brackets, slashes, dashes and hyphens. Such detailed advanced tips give the impression of great accuracy and precision. One of her valuable additions from the informational point of view is that she pays considerable attention to review and editorial processes as well as publishing in different types of journals.
Laurie Rozakis among other things pays special attention to the process of accumulation of information for the research. She describes in detail how to choose a subject for the research paper, how to narrow the subject into a research topic, how to draft a Thesis Statement, how to find the necessary information, how to use online sources and books, how to evaluate sources and how to make notes on them.
All in all, the mentioned above points are useful and educative in every way but one: they do not provide the exact knowledge on how to actually say all of that in English. Eventually, we made goods use of three books by Adrian Wallwork: "English for Writing Research Papers" [8], "English for Present a-tions at International Conferences" [6] and "English for Research: Usage, Style, and Grammar" [7]. Also Hilary Glasman-Deal and her "Science Research Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English" [1] were very helpful.
We found the structure and info in Adrian Wallwork's textbooks most useful and helpful. First of all, each of his books is dedicated just to one form of activity which is either writing, presenting at conferences of working with grammar. Such approach helped to concentrate on certain technologies and methods rather than trying to take into account as much as we can. In other words we could study one phenomenon, say Introduction from the point of view of its structure and wording in a written form of a scientific paper; varieties of its presentation at a conference and grammatical peculiarities. Second, beside practical tips on the structure and the contents of every section in a scientific paper the author gave a selection of possible ways to phrase the ideas and very illustrative examples. The examples did not stick just to one field of scientific knowledge but differed which gave a wider scope of understanding. Third, all the exemplar phrases given by Adrian Wallwork could be regarded as collocations and applied to research papers on various topics. All of the mentioned above met the needs of our own objectives, in particular, finding an easy way of learning idiomatic vocabulary of Scientific English.
Methodology
The current experiment was aimed at proving the assumption that writing research papers in English did not require deep and profound knowledge of the language but involves mastering certain techniques in wording phrase structuring combined with the use of readymade idiomatic expressions and collocations. There were two prerequisites to the participants: Basic English and experience in carrying out scientific research in their own language.
The group we gathered differed in age, varying in average from 35 to 65. All the participants were educators in the Taganrog Teachers Training University named after A.P. Chekov and were PhDs (candidates and doctors of various sciences). The course according to the mutual agreement of the attendees and the educator was divided into two parts: so called Researcher which was aimed at getting theoretical knowledge and mastering practical skills of writing scientific research papers in English; and so called Speaker which was aimed at mastering practical skills of presenting scientific papers at international conferences. We worked out two curricular; the main problem that was to be decided was: What to talk about? We had to work out the part of explanation but not to turn the whole enterprise into a series of lectures. As a result, a short summary of the curricular can be presented in the following way.
1. Researcher.
> Topic 1. Basic word order and sentence structure in English in respect with scientific writing. Linking the text logically. How to be concise and avoid ambiguity. Practical task.
> Topic 2. Highlighting your feelings. Ways to criticize. Practical task.
> Topic 3. How can I generate a Title? When is a two-part title a good idea? What criteria should I use to decide whether to include certain words or not. How can I make my title shorter? Practical task.
> Topic 4. Abstract. How long should it be? How much background. How should I structure my Abstract? How should I begin my Abstract? What style should I use: personal or impersonal. What tenses should I use? How should I select my key words? What are some of the typical characteristics of poor abstracts? Practical task.
> Topic 5. Introduction. What key skills are needed when writing an Introduction? How should I structure the Introduction? How should I begin my Introduction? What typical phrases should I include and avoid in my Introduction? How does an Introduction differ from an Abstract? What tenses should I use? Practical task.
> Topic 6. How should I structure my Review of the Literature? How should I begin my Literature Review? What is the clearest way to refer to other authors? What tenses should I use? How can I reduce the amount I write when reporting the literature? Practical task.
> Topic 7. Methods. What key skills are needed when writing the Methods? How should I structure the Methods? How should I begin the Methods? What tense should I use? Should I use the active or passive? How can I avoid my Methods appearing like a series of lists? Should I describe everything in chronological order? What grammatical constructions can I use to justify my aims and choices? How can I indicate the consequences of my choices and actions? How should I end the Methods? Practical task.
> Topic 8. Results. What key skills are needed when writing the Results? How should I begin the Results? How should I structure the rest of the Results? How should I end the Results? Should I report any negative results? What tenses should I use when reporting my Results? What style should I use when reporting my Results? How should I comment on my tables and figures? Practical task.
> Topic 9. Discussion. What key skills are needed when writing the Discussion? How should I structure the Discussion? How should I begin the Discussion? How should I compare my work with that of others? How should I end the Discussion? Active or passive? What kind of writing style should I use? How should I discuss the limitations of my research? Practical task.
> Topic 10. Conclusions. What key skills are needed when writing the Conclusions? How should I structure the Conclusions? How should I begin my Conclusions? How can I differentiate my Conclusions from my Abstract? How can I end my Conclusions? What tenses should I use? Practical task.
2. Speaker.
> Topic 1. Ten Stages in Preparing Your Slides. Identify your key points/messages. Prepare a two-minute talk. Expand into a longer presentation. Cut redundant slides, simplify complicated slides. Practical task.
> Topic 2. Writing Out Your Speech in English. Only have one idea per sentence and repeat key words. Do not use synonyms for technical/key words. Explain or paraphrase words that may be unfamiliar to the audience. Use verbs rather than nouns, avoid abstract nouns. Choose the right level of formality. Practical task.
> Topic 3. Pronunciation and Intonation. Understand the critical importance of correct pronunciation. Be very careful of English technical words that also exist in your language. Be careful of -ed endings. Avoid er, erm, ah. Help the audience to tune in to your accent. Mark up your script and then practice reading it aloud. Use stress to highlight the key words. Practical task.
> Topic 4. Ten Ways to Begin a Presentation. Practical task.
> Topic 5. Outline and Transitions. Consider not having an "Outline" slide. Use transitions to guide your audience. Signal a move from one section to the next. Add variety to your transitions. Practical task.
> Topic 6. Methodology. Give simple explanations and be careful when giving numbers. Give examples first, technical explanations second. (Just show the key steps in a process or procedure. Explain why
you are not describing the whole process. Use active and passive forms effectively. Tell a story rather than sounding like a technical manual. Practical task.
> Topic 7. Results and Discussion. Explain statistics, graphs, and charts in a meaningful way. Communicate the value of what you have done. Avoid phrases that might make you sound overconfident or arrogant. Tell the audience about any problems in interpreting your results. Explain whether your results were expected or not. Encourage discussion and debate. Practical task.
> Topic 8. Conclusions. Make sure your final slides give useful information. Show your enthusiasm. Five ways to end a presentation. Practical task.
> Topic 9. Questions and Answers. Prepare in advance for all possible questions. Give the audience time to respond to your call for questions. Repeat the questions. Don't interrupt the questioner unless ... Always be polite. Practical task.
> Topic 10. Communicating at the conference. What to talk about with the participants. Politically correct vocabulary. The conference agenda. Practical task.
As it can be seen from a given above summary quite a number of topics in the two curricular were overlapping but the practical skills that were supposed to be acquired during the seminars were absolutely different. Each topic was to last from two up to four hours depending on the contents and included the explanatory part done in the form of presentation and practical assignment.
After the curricular had been asserted our next move was to find out language level of the participants as it was one of our prerequisites that all of the members of the studying group had at least Basic English. For this purpose we included initial testing into the first seminar by way of placement test. The results revealed that most of the attendees had Preintermediate English which suited our aim. It should be noted that the information about the level was necessary for the educator to make adequate slides and accordingly revise and adapt practical tasks but did not influence the choice of textbooks. The reason for that was that neither Oxford nor Cambridge Press (or any other we know of) divide the textbooks on Scientific English into levels, the way they do with any other type of discourse, say, Business English. The example of this is the textbook Cambridge English for Scientists by TamzenArmer [5] printed by Cambridge Press, which does not have any levels and by the vocabulary and grammatical peculiarities corresponds to Upper Intermediate English. Therefore, one of the practical tasks of the educator was to adapt the information given in the textbooks to the level of the attendees.
The explanation of each topic was done in a form of slides. The useful information was given in Russian, the examples were done in English. We tried to arrange the explanatory part in a interactive way by making the group members read the example or find the peculiarities under discussion and comment on them. For instance, while discussing the ways to word the aim and problem of the research in Introduction we first assert the idea. We show a slide containing the following information: The alternative way of formulating the aim in the Introduction (especially in the Humanities) might be asking problematic questions. Then in the next slide we give an example: Persistence is an attribute valued by many. What makes some people persist longer than others? Are internal factors, such as personality traits, or external situational factors, such as feedback, responsible for persistence? Could the answer include a combination of both? These are the questions this experiment attempted to answer. The interactive part starts with asking a group member to read the example aloud. It helps the people to feel involved in the process and not to be afraid to speak up when they have to. After reading we get the feedback by setting the following task: in the given above example find the a) background information, b) aim, c) the authors conclusions. Next step is to make the attendees transfer the knowledge into skill by using it in a different context, so we ask the group members to think of how they might formulate the aims of their own research works in the same manner and discuss the variants.
Every topic was followed by practical tasks. As we have said before, the aim of the course was not to study English but to study Scientific English, which meant that we did not pay special attention to grammar or vocabulary in general. Grammatical and vocabulary exercises were introduced only from the point of view of the peculiarities of the current practical aim of the seminar. For example, the section discussion more often than not requires the use of modals. We introduce the general idea of modal verbs and meanings, not all possible ones but only those that can be appropriate in a scientific paper. Then we set a paraphrase task to make sure that attendees acquired the skill of using the modals: Complete the sentences using could, must, may, should, might, ought to, need to, can, have to. Make sure you use the right tense and don't forget to use negative forms where necessary.
1. We felt sure that the damage was caused by heat exposure.
The damage_
2. No way was the damage caused by heat exposure.
The damage_
3. We don't expect heat exposure to cause any damage.
Heat exposure_ etc.
The parts highlighted in bold showed where exactly the paraphrase should take place. We chose mostly this method to brush up grammar because paraphrasing skills are very useful for writing, especially for non-native speakers.
Vocabulary exercises dedicated to the use of separate words were also connected with the peculiarities of a given section of the paper. For example in the section Results authors are bound to use quantifies which means that we have to pay special attention to the fact. First we give brief overview of the meanings of the descriptors:
1. The first group contains words or phrases which make the size/quantity look big: A considerable amount of residue remained in the pipe.
2. The second group contains words or phrases which make the size/quantity look small: Barely
23 % of the residue remained in the pipe, etc.
Then we give the words to which are not yet grouped and ask the participants to classify them according to the following meanings:
1. words or phrases which increase the size/quantity;
Third we ask the group to think of some examples connected with their own research activity. The biggest part of our attention was dedicated to the vocabulary exercises which included idiomatic expressions and collocations. Our long term aim was to teach the attendees a number of idiomatic means characteristic to written and spoken varieties of Scientific English. For this purpose we worked out the following types of exercises.
1. We give an excerpt from the section under discussion and ask to find the idiomatic means of expressing some thoughts that could be applied to the participant's own study: Write down the words and phrases which describe:
1) hypothesis / hypothetical situation;
2) current research or knowledge on a particular topic;
3) general statements about past research;
4) the results or conclusions taken from specific past research.
2. Matching exercises. We give various beginnings of implementing ideas and possible endings and ask the attendees to make up as many phrases as possible. For example, Match as many possible variants as you can. Define the phrases which mean analogy and contrast.
This/ analogous to
Our study comparable to
/method compatible with
/result/ consistent with
approach is/ identical (to)
does in contradiction to
in contrast to
in good agreement (with)
in line with
significantly different (to/from)
the first of its kind
3. Exercises on making right collocations. In them a certain word should collocate only with the certain context. For example, Complete the collocations for describing the stages in the scientific method using the words and phrases in the box.
a hypothesis an experiment (x2) conclusions data (x3) a question
analyse_
collect_
conduct (or run)_
define_
design_
draw_
form_
interpret_
4. Finish the given phrases. This type of practical tasks was aimed at breaking the fear of speaking up when attendees finish up the sentences with given idiomatic beginnings. For example: Finish the
given phrases according to your own research data.
1) To the knowledge of the authors, the data ................is
2) The results of..............therefore challenge...................... assumption that........
3) The method provides results that are.................
4) Our results are in general agreement with........................
5) Our current findings expand......................
6) The.............described in this paper is..............................
Unlike......................, we did not......................................
5. Making up a short speech using the given variants of expressions. The final type of the practical exercises was aimed at reviving and developing speaking skills of the group members. To ease this difficult and painstaking task we give the speakers the choice of idiomatic expressions appropriate in the given context. For example: Using the given below phrases formulate in short your Abstract.
1) It is known that... /it has recently been shown that...
2) The aim of this study is to describe/show/investigate...
3) In this study/paper/investigation we address/analyse/argue/compare/consider/describe the problem of.
4) The experimental data were assembled/were calculated/were evaluated/were measured with the help of... method.
5) It was noted/observed/discovered that...
6) We suggest that...
7) Our results can be applied...
Results
As we have stated previously the general idea of the experimental group was not to stick to traditional language courses but first, to provide only the information concerning a certain kind of discourse, second, to make the vocabulary of this area as idiomatic as possible. We therefore predicted that provided that the participants had Basic English level and experience in carrying out research work in their own language it would be possible to master the skills of written and oral types of Scientific English discourse within 24 practical seminars (48 classroom hours). We devised certain types of presenting theoretical material and working at practical exercises which served our purpose.
The result of the group work during 3 months was to be a scientific research paper of 8-10 pages long written in English according to specific rules of making up international papers and a 7-10 minute oral presentation of a paper the way it is usually done at International Conferences. The result was achieved successfully by all the members of the experimental group. The sentences used in the texts were correct from grammatical and structural points of view; the appropriate idiomatic expressions were made use of. The difficulties generally occurred with the choice of the right word or definition but the conceptual ideas of scientific research paper were embodied correctly.
Conclusion
So, as we have proved, the ability to write scientific papers and present speeches in English depends not so much on the profound knowledge of the language but on the precise and correct use of peculiarities of the certain type of discourse. In our future studies we are planning to expand our experiment to the group of Masters, those who are still learning the skills of research and experimental activity. We are of the opinion that some of the techniques described above would need restructuring and expanding, and that is what we are planning to do.
Works Cited
1. Glasman-Deal, Hilary. Science research writing for non-native speakers of English / Hilary Glasman-Deal. - London: Imperial College Press, 2010. - 272 p.
2. Goldbort, Robert. Writing for Science / Robert Goldbort. - New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2006. -330 p.
3. Peat, Jennifer. Scientific Writing Easy when you know how / Jennifer Peat. - London: BMJ Books, 2002. - 292p.
4. Rozakis, L. Schaum's Quick Guide to Writing Great Research Papers / L. Rozakis. - 2 edition. - McGraw-Hill, 2007. - 192 p.
5. Tamzen, Armer. Cambridge English for scientists. Student's book / ArmerTamzen. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. - 108 p.
6. Wallwork, Adrian. English for Presentations at International Conferences / Adrian Wallwork. - Springer, 2010. -180 p.
7. Wallwork, Adrian. English for Research: Usage, Style and Grammar / Adrian Wallwork. - Springer, 2013. -250 p.
