Disciplinary Literacy in English as a Foreign Language in Biotechnology Engineering

Abstract

This paper explores the concepts of disciplinary literacy and content-area literacy as well as disciplinary literacy in English as a foreign language for biotechnology engineering. Literacy practices in English as a foreign language in biotechnology are focused on the reading practices and reading strategies that students and disciplinary experts use. The participants are 94 undergraduate students of biotechnical sciences at the University of Kragujevac, Serbia, and 46 biotechnology engineering experts. The focus of the study is the use of reading strategies in English by these two groups. Based on measures of internal consistency, descriptive statistics and ANOVA, the study demonstrates that the most prominent reading strategies used by biotechnology students and experts involve re-reading for better understanding and for details, using background knowledge, using text features, and finding main ideas. The experts generally use reading strategies more frequently than the students. They are more motivated to read English-medium material than the students; they choose the text for reading on their own, confirm the purpose of reading, and discuss what is read with others significantly more frequently than the students. Reading silently is the only reading strategy where gender differences were found.Key words biotechnology engineering, disciplinary literacy, English as a foreign language, reading, strategies. * Corresponding address: Milevica Bojović, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Agronomy in Čačak, Cara Dušana 34, 32000 Čačak, Serbia. DISCIPLINARY LITERACY IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN BIOTECHNOLOGY ENGINEERINGhttps://doi.org/10.18485/esptoday.2017.5.2.5Vol. 5(2)(2017): Sažetak Cilj ovog rada je da se odrede pojmovi disciplinarne pismenosti, pismenosti u okviru različitih sadržaja i disciplinarne pismenosti u oblasti engleskog kao stranog jezika u biotehnologiji. Kako je ispitivanje pismenosti na engleskom kao stranom jeziku u oblasti biotehnologije usmereno na praćenje aktivnosti čitanja i strategija čitanja, cilj rada je i ispitati koje strategije čitanja na engleskom jeziku primenjuju studenti i stručnjaci. Uzorak čini 94 studenata osnovnih studija Univerziteta u Kragujevcu i 46 stručnjaka u oblasti biotehnološkog inženjerstva. Na osnovu rezultata dobijenih statističkim postupcima kao što su interna konzistentnost, deskriptivna analiza i univarijantna analiza varijanse, istraživanje ukazuje da i studenti i stručnjaci u oblasti biotehnologije najčešće primenjuju sledeće strategije čitanja: ponovno čitanje radi boljeg razumevanja teksta, ponovno čitanje radi pronalaženja pojedinosti u tekstu, primena već stečenih znanja, korišćenje osobina teksta radi njegovog razumevanja, pronalaženje glavne ideje u tekstu. Stručnjaci primenjuju strategije čitanja češće nego što to čine studenti. Stručnjaci su i značajno više motivisani da čitaju na engleskom jeziku u odnosu na studente. Takođe, stručnjaci značajno češće samostalno biraju tekstove koje će čitati na engleskom jeziku, potvrđuju svrsishodnost...

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