Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Scien ce s 116 ( 2014 ) 656 660 5 th World Conference on Educational Sciences - WCES 2013 Academics at Faculty of Informatics and Management and Their Language Needs Blanka Frydrychova Klimova* University of Hradec Kralove, Faculty of Informatics and Management, Rokitanskeho 62, Hradec Kralove, 500 03, Czech Republic Abstract The purpose of the article is to explore what language skills the academic staff members at the Faculty of Informatics and Management of the University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, need for their research work in English. Firstly, the paper diagnoses academics language knowledge with the help of DIALANG a diagnostic test to identify their level of English. Secondly, small-scale empirical research, which was performed among the academic staff members, is described. Thirdly, the key research findings and results concerning the language skills are discussed and summarized. 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center. Keywords: academics, language skills, English, research; 1. Introduction After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, new universities and faculties emerged in the Czech Republic. However, currently, due to the economic crisis, there has been a decline in the number of students entering universities and some of the universities have faced difficulties surviving. Therefore, universities attempt to create favourable study environment, promote their study programmes through means of advertising and personal meetings with students, open day house days and promote research done by their academics in order to attract new students. This paper focuses on the needs analysis of the English language skills which might influence academics presentation of their research results in foreign impact factor journals. 2. Methods The methods employed in the small-scale empirical research on language skills were as follows: educational test, questionnaires, observations, statistical methods of processing the results of the research. *Corresponding name: Blanka Frydrychova Klimova. Tel.: +420-493332318 E-mail address: blanka.klimova@uhk.cz 1877-0428 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.274
Blanka Frydrychova Klimova / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 ( 2014 ) 656 660 657 3. Findings and results The research performed among doctoral students and academics at the Faculty of Informatics and Management (FIM) of the University of Hradec Kralove (UHK), Czech Republic, showed that academic staff possessed sufficient level of English. This was revealed on the basis of DIALANG test. It is a diagnostic test which gives information about student s strengths and weaknesses in more than just one skill and language. It tests language proficiency in 14 European languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Irish, Icelandic, and Norwegian. It covers the following language skills: reading, writing, listening, grammatical structures and vocabulary. The test proved that most of the academics (11/73% out of 15) had B2 level of English according to Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CERF). Such a user of English can be described according to CERF as follows: can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options. Academics were also given a questionnaire in order to discover: 1. what language skills in the area of speaking, reading, listening and writing they consider important to acquire or improve for their profession, 2. what documents they write most often, 3. what difficulties they have in formal written English, which is a prerequisite for publishing their research results. Ad.1) In the area of speaking the academics feel that they need to master set phrases and be able to communicate in different situations, both formal (e.g. when giving presentations or participating in professional discussions) and informal. In addition to that, they lack readiness in real life conversation. As far as listening is concerned, the greatest difficulty seems to be fast speech in noisy environment of both native and non-native speakers. Sometimes also idiomatic phrases hinder listening comprehension. In the area of reading skills, they say they lack a sufficient range of vocabulary. They also face difficulties in reading if the sentence structure is slightly more complicated. Finally, in the area of writing, they need to master differences between formal and informal English, grammar, and collocations. Overall, they feel insufficiencies in writing a professional text. Ad.2) As it might have been expected, the academics most often write professional articles (73%) and abstracts (60%) in which they present their research findings. The third most common document which they write is a formal letter (33%). The other forms, they use, include summaries (20%), reports (20%) and professional essays (13%). None of the academics write a monograph. See Fig.1.
658 Blanka Frydrychova Klimova / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 ( 2014 ) 656 660 Figure 1. Types of documents the academics write Ad.3) They were offered a list of the common issues which might make their writing in a foreign language difficult: 1. a choice of relevant topic 2. expressing one s thought in a foreign language 3. logical structuring of ideas in a foreign language 4. insufficient knowledge of vocabulary in a foreign language 5. incorrect transfer of rules from the native language, e.g. about the word order, into the foreign language 6. insufficient knowledge of grammar in the target language: a) word order; b) use of articles in English; c) use of tenses 7. punctuation 8. spelling 9. use of formal language 10. writing bibliographies and references in a foreign language The questionnaire reveals that the most problematic area of writing for most respondents (12/80%) seems to be insufficient knowledge of grammar, which is followed by insufficient knowledge of vocabulary (8/53%) respondents) and incorrect transfer of rules from the native language into the foreign language (7/47%) respondents). Finally, an equal position is occupied by expressing one s thought in a foreign language, writing punctuation and use of formal language (6/40% respondents). The remaining issues are not considered that important (Fig. 2).
Blanka Frydrychova Klimova / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 ( 2014 ) 656 660 659 Figure 2. A list of the most common writing difficulties The main reason for their statements is that writing requires a high proficiency of the target language and particularly, acquisition of academic vocabulary and discourse style is difficult. According to cognitive theory, communicating in writing is an active process of skill development and gradual elimination of errors as the learner internalizes the language. Acquisition is usually a product of the complex interaction of the linguistic environment and the learner's internal mechanisms. One model that applies to both speaking and writing in a second language is Anderson s (1985) model of language production, which can be divided into three stages: construction, in which the writer plans what he/she is going to write by brainstorming, using a mind-map or outline; transformation, in which language rules are applied to transform intended meanings into the form of the message when the writer is composing or revising; and execution, which corresponds to the physical process of producing the text. Besides knowing what they want to express and being under stress when writing, the most problematic stage of the writing process seems to be the process of transformation. The reason is that non-native speakers most often lack a sufficient level of L2. Thus, they do not have a wide range of academic vocabulary and relevant discourse structures. Moreover, they try to apply certain linguistic rules (such as in the case of the Czech language the word order, which is not fixed) in the target language on the basis of similarities with L2, which proves to be completely wrong. These errors are usually known as language interference. 3. Conclusion The research showed that academics generally had a good command of English. However, to get their research published and to present it at a professional level, they particularly need to work on accuracy and mastering set phrases, and collocations, especially as far as their professions are concerned. Furthermore, they need to be exposed to different accents of both native and non-native speakers in order to be able to follow lively professional discussions/debates or presentations and join them. This can be achieved by various learning strategies and methods, which might be explored in next article.
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