A Content Comprehension Approach to Reading English for Science and Technology

English for special purposes (ESP) reading programs often take specific grammar, vocabulary, and isolated reading skills as the organizing principle for syllabus design and fail to acknowledge how the act of comprehending text can affect reading ability. The present study reports on an ESP reading project which emphasizes the role of content comprehension. The context of the study is the Reading English for Science and Technology Project in the Chemical Engineering Department of the Universidad de Guadalajara. The materials for the 2-year course were developed around thematic units which correspond to undergraduate course content. Instruction presented grammar and vocabulary only as they were necessary for comprehension of the text. The study examines whether the emphasis on reading for content improved reading comprehension as well as knowledge of reading grammar and general reading ability. Students were administered three reading tests: reading grammar, comprehension, and cloze. Significant differences were found for instructional status and subtest and for each subtest by instructional level. The results of this study suggest that the content comprehension approach can improve reading comprehension as well as knowledge of reading grammar and general reading ability. Developers of English for Special Purposes (ESP) materials are frequently called upon to develop language materials for narrowly defined fields of study. Too often the language of the target texts is viewed as a product which the learners must master rather than as a stimulus for a complex set of interacting learner strategies and tasks embedded in the learning process. In part, this reflects a view that texts are linguistic objects rather than vehicles for the presentation of information (Johns & Davies, 1983); that is, the passages are considered to be objects representing organizational or syntactic structures to be studied and mastered by students.