This paper aims at emphasising the integration of all language skills in learning and teaching ESP. The methodology highlights the learners' involvement: their creativity, independence, personalities, attitudes and opinions. The article discusses the methodology of fostering integrated writing-reading-writing (WRW) skills. The gist of the technique is to recycle the same ESP vocabulary in all stages of teaching. The first step comprises creative writing: students use a teacher's suggested set of pre-taught vocabulary. A peer-assessment of written work is followed by reading an authentic text and doing comprehension exercises designed by teachers. A final stage involves writing a summary of the authentic passage in small groups followed by the analysis of the summary, which is a whole class activity. The interrelated WRW methodology renders consolidation of the appropriate usage of ESP vocabulary and improvement of writing/reading/speaking skills. 

Introduction

Language teaching has always been characterised by the use of methods that enable learners to acquire a sufficient amount of vocabulary, which is called a `working' vocabulary. "Words are the basis of language, and thus the basis of communicationTesting lexical items shortly after they have been presented to learners may often be a fruitless exercise. The most recently presented words are frequently the ones that cannot be recalled. A certain amount of repetition is likely to be necessary before there is any hope of retention. When a word is retained, it passes from the short-term memory into the long-term memory" (Bowen & Marks, 1999, p. 106).

So the notion of lexical syllabus in ESP is growing with emphasis on frequency and range of lexical items. Proponents of the lexical syllabus argue that language is stored and acquired in the form of prefabricated lexical phrases or chunks (Lewis, 1993), and their recognition by learners is believed to speed the process of language acquisition.

Perez-Gonzales (1999) describes how Key-Word-In-Context (KWIC) concordances may be exploited in the legal ESP classroom: "Concordances allow students to integrate the theoretical insights into their own learning experience, secure their active participation in the identification of multi-word patterns" (p. 37). The concordancing technique is a key tool in corpus research (a corpus is a collection of naturally occurring language texts). 

The Key-Word-In-Context (KWIC) approach is a common technique for summarising a text, and it has been neglected in ESP teaching recently. In this short article we intend to look at some possible issues of KWIC approach. We applied it for the purpose of recycling some professional terms and reactivating recently taught vocabulary items with the aims to foster writing-reading skills in ESP.

Description of WRW methodology

The gist of this methodology is to recycle the same ESP lexical phrases in the interrelated writing-reading-writing (WRW) stages. The first step is setting up a writing activity in small groups of students (2 or 3 in a group). Students are asked to write a passage using a provided set of previously learnt ESP items within a certain time limit. 

The second step involves peer-assessment of written work with emphasis on the appropriacy and accuracy in the usage of lexical phrases. This stage is extremely important as it aims at achieving adequate, accurate, brief and clear expression of ideas and events. Adding affect makes both these stages effective and fruitful. The role of affect for successful learning of a foreign language was highlighted by Nunan and Lamb (1996) and Tomlinson (1999). Teachers must offer enough space to students to use their intelligence and inventiveness, creating a positive atmosphere for students to use English as a tool for communication and bringing in each student's creativity, independence as well as novelty and challenge. In this way, students not only become involved in the activity, but they also find it enjoyable. The teacher's role is basically passive: to observe and, if necessary, to advise. This is when real learning takes place naturally, without apparent efforts. Some students have come up with written work which is far beyond our expectations. 

The follow-up or the third stage includes reading. The important feature of this stage is that the passage contains the same ESP key words that students had to use in their creative writing. Students, usually in the same groups, are asked to read a specially selected authentic text and complete the comprehension exercises. These include: a) matching ESP key words with their definitions, b) True/False choice, c) multiple choice, or d) comprehension questions. All these exercises are designed by us in advance. As a rule, it does not take learners long to carry out these tasks. They feel at ease and do not get put off even encountering some unknown words in the passage. The process of checking answers is done by peer-assessment under the teacher's silent monitoring. Thus, a consolidation of ESP vocabulary at this stage usually proceeds without a hitch. 

The final stage is writing a summary of the same authentic passage. If time permits, it is done in the classroom; alternatively, it might be students' homework. Nevertheless, written summaries should be analysed in the same manner as students' creative writing. The use of an overhead projector at this stage has proved benefitial. Each group writes their summaries on a transparency, which can be viewed in the process of analysis: longer sentences are easier to discuss, spelling errors, style, layout can be corrected on the spot. A sample of a vocabulary set for creative writing, an authentic passage and follow-up task-types, which can be used in such activities, are enclosed in the Appendix. Teachers of ESP can adapt their own materials for integrating all language skills in, for example, a topic-based approach.

Conclusions

In this paper we have focused on a technique to foster students' writing and reading skills for ESP and recycle previously learnt lexical items. Learners' speaking skills are practised in the analysis of written work, i.e. creative writing and summarising.

The advantages of interrelated WRW technique are:

- promoting language usage for improving ESP skills,
- building up students' self-confidence and self-expression,
- reducing learners' anxiety,
- using their intelligence, creativity and inventiveness,
- increasing motivation,
- improving attitude to the writing/reading process,
- developing accuracy and fluency in ESP and
- emphasising patterns of lexical items.

Shifting the emphasis towards effective ways of learning rather than effective ways of giving students language input is the most important trend of contemporary ESP teaching. In other words, the preference for learner's autonomy should dominate the process of designing activities in the classroom (Howard & Brown, 1997). Over and over again, we must remember the famous words of Confucius, 551-479 BC, `If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.' So let us teach our students fishing, i.e. help them develop their independence in learning ESP. This technique is a step forward towards autonomy. WRW methodology can also be applied for teaching General English at the intermediate level and above.

References

Bowen, T., & Marks, J. (1994). Inside teaching. Oxford: Heinemann.
Howard, R., & Brown, G. (Eds.). (1997). Teacher education for ESP. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Lewis, M. (1993). The lexical approach. London: Language Teaching Publications. 
Nunan, D., & Lamb, C. (1996). The self-directed teacher: Managing the learning process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perez-Gonzales, L. (1999). Getting to grips with legal English. IATEFL ESP Newsletter, 14, 36-39.
Tomlinson, B. (1999). Adding affect to ESP. IATEFL ESP SIG Newsletter, 1.

Appendix

A sample of materials for applying WRW technique

The students were requested to write their own, creative story using a set of words/collocations, which are given below the text and numbered from 1 to 10. These words are underlined in the reading text and used for the follow-up matching exercise in the reading stage. The reading text comprises the following authentic article published in the newspaper "The Daily Telegraph" in 1999 (included in the coursebook Janulevièienë, V. and Kavaliauskienë , G. (2001). Mastering English legal and law enforcement terms. Part 2. Vilnius: Law University of Lithuania). 

Read the text and match the underlined words 1-10 with the definitions a-j.

A leading Russian businessman was killed in St Petersburg by assassin who fired a rocket-propelled grenade at his armour-plated car and opened fire with machine guns.

Pavel Kapysh, head of a local oil company, died of his wounds in hospital. He was described as one of St Petersburg's richest men.

The ambush was one of the most ruthless in Russia's recent history, carried out during the morning rush hour on University Embankment not far from the Hermitage museum. A tourist coach was driving past at the time.

The rocket-propelled grenade reduced the left side of Mr Kapysh's black Chevrolet to a mangled heap of twisted metal.

Mr Kapysh's firm, the Baltic Financial Industrial Group, is the largest supplier of fuel to the city's petrol stations and Mr Kapysh was known as its `Petrol King'.

Russia's second city, the old imperial capital, has earned a reputation for audacious contract killings , which have claimed the lives of several leading politicians and businessmen recently.

Mr Kapysh's wealth would have been enough in itself to attract the hostile attention of Russia's organised crime syndicates. But the oil industry - and the petrol business in particular - is also dominated by Chechen gangsters.

The attackers in ambush escaped before the police arrived. A man travelling with Mr Kapysh, believed to be his bodyguard, was seriously wounded.

1 to fire (v) a to cause the death of sb
2 armour-plated (adj) b aggressive; showing strong dislike 
3 ambush (n) c the time of each day when roads are most full of traffic
4 rush hour (n) d an agreement to kill sb deliberately
5 a coach (n) e a surprise attack from a hidden position 
6 a grenade (n) f a material burned to produce heat or power 
7 fuel (n) g covered or protected with metal plates from bullets and missiles 
8 a contract killing (n) h a small bomb fired from a gun 
9 to claim a life (exp) i to shoot at sb/sth with a gun 
10 hostile (adj) j a comfortable bus usually with a single deck for carrying passengers over long distances 

For statements 11-15, decide which are True (T) or False (F).

11 There were two men in an ambushed car. 
12 Contract killings are very common in St Petersburg. 
13 Mr Kapysh was dead on arrival at hospital. 
14 He must have been murdered by a sniper. 
15 The assassins were driving the coach. 

ANSWER KEY 1i 2g 3e 4c 5j 6h 7f 8d 9a 10b 11T 12T 13F 14F 15F