Listening and speaking skills in the EU context

write spontaneously about the various phases of the project. It was, on the one hand, owing to the lack of adequate proficiency in English required for the language of the reports, on the other hand, it was because this task did not have to be performed routinely as there were long breaks between two submission dates of project reports.

On the basis of a comparison of the responses given relative to writing skills in the EU context, it can be suggested that teaching writing in the EU class is to be accessed at different levels. As suggested by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), the ESP class benefits a lot of the instruction of writing skills if it takes a social-constructionist approach into account. This approach aims at teaching how to recognise the expectations of the discourse community learners would like to enter. To achieve this in the pedagogy of EU English, the students can be shown model texts to develop rhetorical awareness. For example, EU project reports can be collected which correspond to the fields of interest or subject specialism of the learners. Other EU genres can be selected to practice specific genre features, which can be tailored to the specific individual needs in the class. It is suggested that job advertisements or the Europass CV should be reviewedat since all respective responses assume that the students’ primary motivation in an EU English class is to increase their employability. Consequently, practising writing corresponding to genres, which are most closely related to the target audience’s target needs will contribute to the successful outcome of their writing skills improvement. Practising writing skills can be done individually or in pairs. It can be a home assignment and it can be submitted for teacher evaluation.

teacher-researchers and the EU professionals as well. The perceived importance of the improvement of listening skills when learning the language of the EU was considered by the students to be more important than learning grammar, translation or accurate speech. Three student interviewees also reported that they found it advantageous to be able to listen to EU English interactions.

Fanni talks about this briefly:

It is helpful to me to hear the texts. A listening exercise, a CD, it would be beneficial to have them as part of the book. (Fanni, S/2)

Natali also commented on the role of listening in her class at UTE:

I have prepared additionally some videos for the course. I use quite a lot of videos in the class. I show them videos to listen to and to talk about them. In this way, it is a complex task because we might have a discussion on the topic of the video as well. It is listening and speaking both. When they make presentations, they attach videos too to them. They like it because they can hear the language in an authentic context. (Natali, T/2)

It is shown in the previous extract that both skills, listening and speaking are required.

This spoken interaction is rated high by the students because they intuitively know that their language competence improves if they listen to the language. On the other hand, the importance of being heard in the class is crucial as expressed in student interviews as well. They like to discuss their own opinions on EU-related topics and language issues.

Lea provided an example of the listening content she used in her class. Her perception of carrying out the listening task was also linked to another exercise:

I think EU English can be taught in an interactive way. We have computers in each classroom, so that is not a problem. I showed my students, for instance, how the President of the European Central Bank spoke at a press conference. They had to listen to it and they had to make notes. (Lea, TR/2)

Speaking and listening are closely interrelated because listening usually requires some form of feedback, which is often performed in a spoken interaction. Feedback can be given by

the ESP teacher to enhance learner confidence and it can come from peers in the class during conversations. Another kind of feedback can be linked to a different type of listening and speaking activity. Among their multifold enterprises, ESP classes often favour the presentation component. Although the number of oral presentations needs to be limited in the case of a university course, which lasts only a semester, they are a good means of practising listening and giving and receiving feedback in the class.

In the investigated EU English class, the students had to make presentations and they commented on the gains brought by this endeavour in the interviews. It was mentioned by the students that they found each other’s presentations highly interesting. Alexa talked about being especially motivated by the news she heard during a presentation on a topic she was interested in:

I was really glad to hear about a lot of up-to-date things in the class. When Leila made her presentation on entrepreneurship and she spoke about the Enterprise Europe Network, I was really interested in it because it touched upon issues I would like to be engaged in. (Alexa, S/7)

Not only an interest in fellow classmates’ presentations was reported in the interviews, but also receiving feedback was equally essential to the students after their presentations. They mentioned in the interviews that the lack of such feedback from the teacher does not motivate them. Hanna, the teacher-researcher, also mentioned that among the spoken interactions she would definitely involve presentations in the English class.

4.9.3.1 The EU professionals’ views

The issue of the role of presentation and its techniques was brought up by Szonja who worked for the R&D private company. She reported that her work involved giving presentations for two reasons: at the company, they had to give presentations on the various phases of the project work accomplished, on the other hand, they had to attend expositions where the

company had to be advertised. In the next excerpt, Szonja elaborates on the role of presentation in her job:

There are expos we go to in order to initiate communication with partners and to learn about the involvement of partner companies in the subject field we are engaged in. We need to dig out the relevant information on how to participate in developmental work on a joint basis. The aim of these expositions is to establish new contacts and get to know the future possible directions of the company. We intend to introduce ourselves on these occasions so the participants of the expos have to prepare a presentation beforehand on our work and on any other relevant business. (Szonja, EUPR/2)

Although the language and the content of these presentations are not entirely related to the specialist language and subject specialism of the EU, it is a skill, which comes to the forefront of classes teaching specific languages since at the workplace this communicative function is indispensable today. Therefore, it is recommended that it should be taught in EU English classes paying careful attention primarily to the length of the presentations, since the students tend to get disinterested if the presentations are too long or they do not understand much of the language used in them because the presenter uses too many new words when speaking about a newly introduced topic. A more important reason for teaching oral presentations is to practice listening and speaking at the same time and prepare learners for a communication event, which forms part of the discourse competence they intend to possess.

Another aspect of the listening component of an EU English course was discussed by Blanka who interpreted for the EU. When she was asked about the characteristics of verbal communication in the EU context she was involved in, it was revealed that spoken interactions were largely characterised by the informality of the speech events performed among the interpreter representatives of various Member States. It means that she as an interpreter, on the one hand, is involved in informal conversations with people of other nationalities and does not pay much attention to accurate speech, on the other hand though, she as an interpreter is involved in professional interpreting and is involved both in formal and informal spoken

interactions, and still thinks that accurate grammar and appropriate pronunciation are not as important as getting the message through when interpreting in the EU context or having a conversation on a daily basis.

According to Blanka, verbal communication can be described as a means of pragmatism in the EU context and she was surprised by this when she started her career as an interpreter.

The pedagogical relevance of the above-described aspect of communication was formulated by her as follows:

I think it might be a good idea, maybe not too extravagant, to prepare university students, and not only for those who would like to interpret, for listening to extracts which contain various European accents in English. I believe it is useful because I have heard many of my acquaintances say that the British accent is still fine, but when it comes to understanding the French speaking English, they have considerable difficulties in comprehension. (Blanka, EUPR/3)

Additionally, she suggested that it would be useful to listen to speeches by EU Commissioners as they have strong accents as well when they speak in English.

To sum up, the usefulness of listening exercises, audio or listening tasks which involve real-time presentations, was reinforced by both the professional and non-professional participants of the study. Thus, it is recommended for EU English teachers that they select listening materials for their students, which first of all, include authentic speech such as speeches of prominent participants of the EU political, economic or cultural life. The listening exercise can stress the relevance of multinational English accents since the actors of the EU context have diverse language background and those who get involved in working with people at EU institutions must be able to understand them.