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Teaching English for Chemistry at a Japanese University

Explore the challenges Japanese learners face in acquiring English vocabulary for chemistry studies, and discover efficient methods to improve their language skills. This seminar delves into tailored academic word lists, corpus compilation, and the comparison of AKL and JACS AWL. Enhance your teaching strategies and support students in navigating academic materials in English.

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Teaching English for Chemistry at a Japanese University

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  1. 2017ISTEC 17/07/2017 Seminaris Campus Hotel Berlin, Germany Teaching English for Chemistry at a Japanese University Makoto Shimizu*, Masaki Murata**, and Kris Ramonda* *Faculty of Science, Tokyo University of Science makoto@rs.kagu.tus.ac.jp **Graduate School of Engineering, Tottori University

  2. Japanese learners experience difficulty in English • 85% of Japanese • CEFR(Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) A1, lowest 1. Introduction

  3. Globalism = English • Even undergraduate students required to read and write academic articles in English 1. Introduction

  4. Coxhead (2000a, b) • Basic word list, 2,000 words • Academic Word List, 800 words • 3,000 words cover 95% of academic writing • EGAP (English for General Academic Purposes)academic word listscompiled sincethen 1. Introduction

  5. Hyland & Tse (2008) • Not EGAP butESAP(English for Specific Academic Purposes) • ESAP academic word lists compiledsince then 1. Introduction

  6. What are the best basic word list and the best ESAP list like for undergraduate students at a science university in Japan? 1. Introduction

  7. Basic word list • JACET2188academicoriented • General Service List (GSL) West (1953),NGSL, BNC, COCA, Oxford 2000/3000 conversation-oriented 2. Methods

  8. Academic word list • Chemistry > Organic Chemistry > JACS • “Tailored” corpus, i.e. JACS 2. Methods

  9. ・Data 100 papers from online journal of organic chemistry Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) 2006-2012, 620,545 words ・How to compile a corpus and retrieve words See Shimizu & Murata (2010, 2012, 2013, 2015) 2. Methods

  10. Parse texts, tag & stem words, and extract words • 2) Select frequent nouns, verbs (over 50), adjectives, adverbs, and others (over 100) • 3) Delete words enlisted in New JACET 2188 • 4) Take chemistry experts’ advice • and delete and add words 2. Methods

  11. JACS Academic Word List • Noun = 598 • Verb = 134 • Adj = 38 • Adv = 4 • Others = 4 • Total = 787 3. Results

  12. Top 10 nouns • Figure (1064), datum (742), protein (722), molecule (495), complex (459), substrate (480), pH (438), NMR (426), spectra (425), mechanism (419) • ・EGAP = 14.16% 3. Results

  13. Top 10 verbs • observe (595), support(519), determine (425), contain (419), bind (415), suggest (405), form (378), obtain (377), provide (364), indicate(335) • ・EGAP = 28.57% 3. Results

  14. Top 10 adjectives • experimental (480), binding (362), molecular (346), structural (298), catalytic (269), solvent (251), significant (223), consistent (211), available (205), radical (179) • ・EGAP = 37.57% 3. Results

  15. Top10adverbs • respectively (199), previously (164), significantly (131), approximately (100), relatively (97), typically (67), furthermore (67), readily (64), experimentally (64), negatively (61) • ・EGAP = 28.57% 3. Results

  16. Others • due to (101), such as (86), whereas (84), as well as (54) • ・EGAP = 100% 3. Results

  17. EGAP Academic Word List • Paquot (2010) Academic Keyword List (AKL)（929 words, 354 nouns, 233 verbs, 180 adjectives, 87 adverbs, 75 others） 4. Discussion

  18. AKL (929 words) vs JACS AWL (776 words) • Common to AKL and JACS AWL • 142 18.29 % • 83 nouns (14.16 %), 38 verbs (28.57 %), 12 adjectives (37.57 %), 4 adverbs, • (28.57 %), 4 others (100%) 4. Discussion

  19. Nouns common to AKL and JACS AWL • EGAP Words • Figure, datum, mechanism 4. Discussion

  20. Nouns occurringonly inJACS AWL • Most words specific to chemistry • protein, molecule, complex, substrate, pH, NMR, spectra 4. Discussion

  21. Nouns occurringinAKL only • Irrelevant to Chemistry • ability, action, advice, adult, age, etc • ・EGAP = inefficient 4. Discussion

  22. ・Coverage New JACET2188 (2188 words) = 70% JACS AWL (776 words) = 15.72% 2969 words = 85.72% 4. Discussion

  23. ・Basic Word List + ESAP AWL = an efficient platform for English for Chemistry ・Coverage JACET2188 + JACS AWL = 85.72% -> 90 % -> 95 % 5. Conclusion

  24. ・MakotoShimizu(AcademicWord Lists) • http://www.rs.kagu.tus.ac.jp/makoto • ・Shinichi Ishikawa (NewJACET8000) • http://language.sakura.ne.jp/s/voc.html Websites

  25. Supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (No 24520655). • Thanks to KoichiTsukiyama,Motoyuki Simonaka, Hidetoshi Kawai, andKazuo Miyamura at Tokyo University of Science for their valuable comments on English for Chemistry. Acknowledgments

  26. Biber, D., Johnasson, S., Leech, G., Conrand, S., and Finegan, E. (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written Language, London: Longman Charniak, Eugene. (2000). A maximum-entropy-inspired parser. Proceedings of NAACL, 132-139. Coxhead, A. (2000a). The Academic Word List: A Corpus-based Word List for Academic Purposes. in Kettemann, B. and Marco, G. (eds.), Language and Computers, Teaching and Learning by Doing Corpus Analysis: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Teaching and Language Corpora, Graz 19-24 July, 2000, 213-238. Coxhead, A. (2000b). A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly 34:2, 213-238. Hyland, K. & Tse, P. (2007). Is there an "Academic Vocabulary"? TESOL Quarterly 41:2, 235-253. References

  27. Granger, S. & Paquot, M. (2009). Lexical verbs in academic discourse: A corpus-driven study of learner use. in M. Charles, D. Pecorari, and S. Hunston (eds.) Academic Writing: At the Interface of Corpus and Discourse, London: Continuum. Paquot, M. (2010). Academic Vocabulary in Learner Writing, London: Continuum. Schmid, H. (1997). Probabilistic part-of-speech tagging using decision trees. In D. Jones & H. Somers (eds.) New methods in language processing. London: UCL Press. Shimizu, M., Murata, M., Nakatani, Y. & Hijikata, Y. (2010) Vt+N patterns in physical chemistry papers. GloCALL 2010, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia 1-3 December, 2010. Shimizu, M., & Murata (2012). Passive and active voices in scientific papers. AsiaTEFL 2012, New Delhi, India 4-6 October, 2012. References

  28. Shimizu, M., & Murata, M. (2013). Passive and active voices in engineering papers. GloCALL 2013, Da Nang, Viet Nam 28-30 November, 2013. Shimizu, M., & Murata, M. (2015). Active and passive voices in biology.CamTESOL 2015, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 28 February-1 March, 2015. http://camtesol.org/past-conferences/2015-conference/Stream EAP.zip/EAP03. Verdaguer, I., Laso, N. J., and Salazar, D. (eds) (2013). Biomedical English: A Corpus-based Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. West, M. (1953). A General Service List of English Words. London: Longman. References

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