(252) RAISING ENGLISH FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS? AWARNESS OF SPECIFIC LANGUAGE FEATURES THROUGH TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED LEARNING: THE CASE OF NOMINAL GROUPS IN SCIENTIFIC ENGLISH

摘要

This communication deals with a pedagogical application of technological resources to the acquisitionof grammar competence to 5th year industrial engineering students. The empirical study focuses onthe teaching and learning of a particular linguistic feature of English for Science and Technology(EST): the nominal groups (NG) both simple and complex. The technology used (Virtual Campus:AulaWeb) was implemented as part of the teaching activities included in the curriculum of the coresubject English for Academic and Professional Communication, taught at the Technical University ofMadrid(UPM). The study involved 50 industrial engineering students with an English level ranging fromA2 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL). It wasimplemented for pedagogical purposes considering the potential of present-day technologies topromote language awareness and its highly motivating effect on students with different CEFRLlanguage levels. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that, through this technology-enhancedEnglish learning, the entire group improved their ability to use nominal groups correctly, and that thestudents' CEFRL language level influenced the student's initial and final marks, but not theirimprovement in NG use, which was highly satisfactory. It was concluded that this approach, whichintegrated technology into the course methodology, improved the students' performance and,therefore, it can be profitably exploited for the acquisition of grammar competence.