Investigation of Technical College Students’ Perceptions of English for Specific Purposes Vocabulary Learning and Teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the learning difficulties and the preferred teaching method among Taiwanese junior college students while they were taking English for Specific Purpose (ESP) vocabulary courses. Subjects comprised 232 students at the Junior College Division of Fooyin University in southern Taiwan. The ESP vocabulary learning questionnaire designed by the researcher was administered to the selected nursing department students who had enrolled in the medical terminology course as a requirement. In addition, the participants’ learning difficulties, learning sources, and attitudes toward ESP vocabulary were under observation for the entire semester. The results of the survey indicated that vocabulary abstractness was the most difficult for most participants, followed by pronunciation, word length, and orthography. Effective ESP vocabulary teaching should be combined with authentic teaching materials to increase learners’ learning motivation. The enhancement of pronunciation accuracy for English as a foreign language (EFL)/ESP instructors cannot be ignored. Moreover, word morphology for ESP vocabulary learning should be the priority, particularly for EFL/ESP vocabulary learners. The insufficiency of ESP instructors is another major difficulty in implementing an ESP program. It is a challenge to find qualified ESP instructors because several language teachers feel incompetent regarding ESP vocabulary courses.