The teaching of English for Professional Purposes through the Content-Based Approach

Abstract

The teaching of English for Professional Purposes (EPP) is of great importance as it allows students to communicate by using the scientific discourse. However, sophomore industrial engineering students from José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana (CUJAE) face difficulties regarding their communication in EPP due to the lack of vocabulary related to their field and their limited oral and written performance about topics concerning their specialty. This paper aims at presenting communicative activities supported on the use of Content-Based Approach which were put into practice during the teaching-learning process of English for Professional Purposes. This subject is taught in the fourth semester of Industrial Engineering major at CUJAE. These communicative activities favored the students’ analysis-synthesis processes, the use of reading techniques and communicative functions which characterizes the scientific discourse, as well as the students´ motivation, interaction and coevaluation. In sum, the communicative activities designed allowed the students not only develop their linguistic skills but also broaden their knowledge about English and the content related to their professional field.

This shows that the link between English and the contents of the academic subjects studied contribute to the training of better professionals.