IS THE ACTION LEARNING APPROACH SUITABLE FOR TEACHING ESP? THE MAIN PREREQUISITES FOR ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE CASE OF AGRI-FOOD STUDENTS

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been a tendency towards embracing the action learning approach in the case of the students attending study programs such as agriculture, forestry, and food engineering. The paper aims to establish if the methods and instruments specific to this approach can be transferred to the ESP lessons and check on the feasibility and limitations of this approach when teaching English for agriculture and food engineering. For this reason, a questionnaire was applied to check the student’s understanding of the action learning approach and their capacity to identify specific action-oriented methods and select a series of methods to be introduced when teaching English. According to the obtained results, the study shows that most students have satisfactory information as regards the action learning approach and can identify and show a certain preference for specific methods that could be used within the ESP course. More than this, an analysis of the different categories of learning methods reveals that the students display a preference for those that develop skills such as observation, visioning, problem-solving, and co-learning. Thus, future studies may explore topics related to the way ESP teaching can further enhance the acquisition and development of specific skills (observation, visioning, reflection, dialogue, participation, co-learning, problem-solving and critical thinking) in the case of future professionals in agriculture, forestry, and food engineering.