Terminology and terminography for architecture and building construction

Abstract

Teaching terminology is a strategic response to the European Educational Convergence guidelines, taken by the Polytechnic University of Madrid. It is vested in a new course "English Terminology for Architecture and Building Construction" offered in the "Master of Techniques and Systems of Construction". The course is interdisciplinary, integrating material from the various sciences involved in architectural practice and exploring it through the discipline of applied linguistics, as recommended by Cabré (2003). The approach is bilingualized, working with Spanish architecture professionals in the medium of English. Students are made aware of the dynamic nature of terminology through corpus-building, and given first-hand experience of terminography through compiling their own bilingualized 1 termbanks of English architectural terms. A model online termbank system (TermFinder), which is being co-developed for architecture and building construction after successful testing in other professional fields, is also discussed.

Vocabulary Teaching Practices of L2 English in Upper Secondary Vocational Classrooms

“…For language teachers who are uncomfortable teaching technical terms, it has been suggested that they can engage learners in identifying what words are central to a specific topic or area (Alcina 2011;Fernádez et al 2009). Instead of trying to become vocational authorities, language teachers can concentrate on their role as language experts and help learners become aware and develop their repertoire of vocabulary strategies (Chung and Nation 2003) and support their students' language awareness and ability to recognize technical terms (Nation 2001).…”

“…This raises the question of whether the teachers are in a position to select vocabulary that represents core aspects of their students' vocational learning. To ameliorate what can be seen as a problematic situation, we build on Alcina (2011), Fernádez et al (2009, Chung and Nation (2003), and Nation (2001), whom all argue that there is no need for English teachers to be vocational experts to succeed in teaching vocational terminology. Instead, English teachers in vocational education can retain their role as language experts and focus on facilitating vocational language encounters.…”