El método de inglés con propósitos específicos para el diseño de materiales en la comprensión de lectura en la educación superior

Abstract

This paper is the result of an educational experience that exhibits the difficulty that students of higher education from different professional profiles are having in terms of English reading comprehension. Thus, it reflects the lack of vocabulary and the shortcomings to remember grammatical structures in the foreign language.

Considering, the above mentioned undergraduate student’s difficulties, this study took as a sample, learners of Occupational Health and Safety Administration learning program, at Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios. Then, a qualitative research was selected, founded on English for Specific Purposes approach (ESP) (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p. 9) by applying the focus group technique based on observation, interviews and surveys. In order to promote technical vocabulary and expressions learning in English, besides through reading practice the communicative goals must be taken into a consideration to improve reading comprehension.

Additionally, by means of the ESP approach this research project is aimed to encourage the design of own materials, which will enhance motivation in the process of acquiring a foreign language. Then, the context and its characteristics, as well as specific content and objectives must be settled down after making process of reflection and constant evaluation.

Finally, it is assumed that the proper reading exercise requires language and its skills, which leads to an interactive process of creating meaning and also serves as an organizing principle of text structures, an important fact in learning English as Foreign language.