Content Analysis of Course Books and Online Courses for Teaching

English for Speciﬁc Purposes for IT Professionals

Svitlana V. Symonenko

1 a

, Nataliia V. Zaitseva

1 b

, Kateryna P. Osadcha

2 c

and

Olena H. Kuzminska

3 d

Dmytro Motornyi Tavria State Agrotechnological University, 18 B. Khmelnytskyi Ave., Melitopol, 72312, Ukraine

Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol State Pedagogical University, 20 Hetmanska Str., Melitopol, 72312, Ukraine

National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Heroiv Oborony Str., Kyiv, 03041, Ukraine

Keywords:

IT Professionals, Foreign Languages, Course Books, Online Courses.

Abstract:

The paper deals with the issue of English language training for IT professionals at Ukrainian universities.

Understanding the importance of studying foreign languages has been conﬁrmed by a number of normative

documents. Peculiarities of professional training of IT specialists at higher education institutions with the

focus on foreign language training are considered. Pedagogical conditions for formation of the communicative

competence of IT professionals are analysed. The content analysis of existing English course books, textbooks

and online courses for IT professionals has been conducted to ﬁnd out the content of foreign language training.

It is stated that English language teaching aids in information technology, computer engineering, computing

and software engineering can be used in the learning process, however, their use requires thorough reﬁnement

and modiﬁcation. The series of guides, manuals and online courses for teaching English for professional

purposes are presented.

1 INTRODUCTION

Education institutions have always been the space for

implementation of new ideas, venues of progressive

events and places for changes and new discoveries.

It comes as no surprise universities around the world

have become main promoters of sustainable develop-

ment ideas and goals. Education for Sustainable De-

velopment (ESD) emphasizes the necessity of “equip-

ping students with the knowledge and understanding,

skills and attributes needed to work and live in a way

that safeguards environmental, social and economic

wellbeing, both in the present and for future genera-

tions” (QAA and Advance HE, 2021).

Modern realms prove that much more attention

is given to environmental and economic spheres of

life, while the socio-cultural area remains untouch-

able (Zygmunt, 2016). Languages, communication,

human interaction are essential parts of human lives,

and they cannot be disregarded in this respect. In ad-

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0599-3999

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8682-0434

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0653-6423

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8849-9648

dition, the question arises of why languages are miss-

ing from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),

as these are precisely languages that can deliver the

SDGs correctly and accessibly. Moreover, “99 per-

cent of negotiations on the SDGs were done in En-

glish, and 100 percent of negotiation outcomes were

written in English” (Tesseur, 2017).

Nowadays, foreign language training is an integral

component of all stages of secondary and higher ed-

ucation, and this process becomes even more signif-

icant under the conditions of ESD. The high level of

the language proﬁciency, certainly, fosters career pro-

motion, the increase of the intellectual and cultural

levels of specialists, and easy adaptation of them in

a foreign language environment. Employer require-

ments for engineering and technical knowledge, skills

and competences are constantly being complicated.

This happens due to the accelerated evolution of tech-

nical skills, the emergence of new engineering profes-

sions and the penetration of technology in all the ar-

eas of human lives. This fact also imposes an imprint

on the foreign language level requirements. The sig-

niﬁcance of the sufﬁcient foreign language level for

IT professionals is even more crucial, as they often

486

Symonenko, S., Zaitseva, N., Osadcha, K. and Kuzminska, O.

Content Analysis of Course Books and Online Courses for Teaching English for Speciﬁc Purposes for IT Professionals.

DOI: 10.5220/0010925600003364

In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2020) - Volume 1, pages 486-498

ISBN: 978-989-758-558-6

work in international companies or teams, therefore

the foreign language knowledge impacts on the result

of their individual or joint work.

The signiﬁcance of learning foreign languages for

Ukrainian students has been recognized by all the

participants of the educational process. Its impor-

tance has been conﬁrmed by a number of normative

guidelines. The recommendation letter of the Min-

istry of Education and Science of Ukraine “On the or-

ganization of studying humanities” No 1/9-120 dated

March 11, 2015 states that “it is necessary to cre-

ate conditions for the study of English as a language

of international academic communication, in order

to reach B2 level in accordance with The Common

European Framework of Reference for Languages”

(MON, 2012). Knowledge of foreign languages is of

crucial importance for IT professionals, and the let-

ter of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine “On im-

proving the quality of training for the IT industry”

(MON, 2015) indicates the need to review the con-

tent of regulatory disciplines, foreign language disci-

plines, economic and jurisprudence disciplines taught

in the training of IT professionals in accordance with

modern information technology.

The higher education standards of Ukraine for

the ﬁeld of knowledge 12 “Information technology”

ﬁeld of knowledge cover a complication of require-

ments for obtaining competences, including foreign

language competence from the ﬁrst to the second level

of higher education. Thus, for a bachelor’s level, the

outcome of learning foreign languages is the ability to

use a foreign language in written and oral communi-

cation (MON, 2018). For the master’s level, the for-

mulation of learning outcomes is expanded: IT pro-

fessionals have to be able to use foreign languages in

their professional activities (MON, 2020).

The objective of the paper is to carry out the anal-

ysis of existing course books, textbooks and online

courses for IT professionals in the context of their

training at higher education institutions.

2 PECULIARITIES OF IT

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AT

HIGHER EDUCATION

INSTITUTIONS

The analysis of scientiﬁc publications has shown

that peculiarities of professional training of IT spe-

cialists have been studied by Dubinina (Dubinina,

2016), Korotun et al. (Korotun et al., 2020), Striuk

(Striuk, 2012), Sydorov et al. (Sydorov et al., 2010),

Tereminko (Tereminko, 2017) and others. Chemerys

et al. (Chemerys et al., 2019), Kruhlyk and Osad-

chyi (Kruhlyk and Osadchyi, 2019), Semerikov et al.

(Semerikov et al., 2020), Varava et al. (Varava et al.,

2021) have been engaged in the analysis of profes-

sional qualities of software engineers. Certain as-

pects of communicative training of IT specialists have

been investigated by Babii (Babii, 2012), Bulakhova

(Bulakhova, 2007), Chirva (Chirva, 2008), Kirilenko

(Kirilenko, 2016), Strilets (Strilets, 2010) and other

researchers.

Striuk (Striuk, 2012) notes that a software engi-

neering specialist “must be familiar with computer

hardware, system infrastructure, methods, tools and

technologies for developing software; be able to de-

sign, develop and maintain software”. The scien-

tist emphasizes that in the ﬁeld of information tech-

nology big and small projects that require skilled

management are implemented, and therefore students

of the software engineering speciality learn to solve

the problems of justiﬁcation, planning, ensuring eco-

nomic efﬁciency, quality and timely implementation

of software projects working in teams. In the context

of globalization, the development of software using

the Internet is widespread, so students learn the ap-

propriate technologies. The author focuses on learn-

ing professional disciplines, but he does not consider

the importance of foreign language training of IT spe-

cialists.

Tereminko (Tereminko, 2017), studying problems

of communicative competence improvement for com-

petitive IT professionals emphasizes that they are

largely related to the low adaptability of the educa-

tion system and, as a result, university graduates to

the dynamic changes in the IT industry. Therefore,

one of the requirements for vocational training is the

formation of student readiness for professional mobil-

ity as an integrative quality of the individual, which is

the ability to actualize their potential opportunities for

adaptation to rapid changes in the professional sphere,

formed on the basis of awareness of the need for the

speciﬁed quality in their successful professional real-

ization and their high level of the professional com-

petence, their desire to develop professionally and to

succeed. The researcher notes that professional dis-

ciplines have a great potential for forming readiness

for professional mobility, and this process can be suc-

cessfully supplemented by such disciplines of other

cycles as foreign languages, in particular, English for

professional purposes, psychology of business com-

munication, and ethics and aesthetics.

An important contribution to the theory of voca-

tional training of future specialists in software engi-

neering has been made by Dubinina (Dubinina, 2016),

who has developed the job description for a specialist

Content Analysis of Course Books and Online Courses for Teaching English for Speciﬁc Purposes for IT Professionals

487

in the ﬁeld of software engineering. She has divided

qualities that ensure the success of such a professional

into personal qualities, interests, aptitude and abili-

ties. The researcher has identiﬁed the professional

tasks that such a specialist should solve, according

to the types of professional activity. In particular,

she identiﬁed the following professional tasks in the

process of analytical activities of software engineer-

ing professionals: collecting and analyzing customer

requirements for software; formalization of the sub-

ject area of the software project by the results of the

terms of reference and rapid examination; assisting

the customer in evaluating and selecting software op-

tions; participation in preparation of the commercial

offer to the customer, preparation of the presentation

and approval of the package of contract documents.

The tasks of designing activities are the following

ones: participation in the design of software compo-

nents to the extent sufﬁcient to design them within

the task; creation of software components (coding,

debugging, unit and integration testing); performing

measurements and refactoring code according to plan;

participation in the integration of software compo-

nents; development of test environment, creation of

test scenarios; development and execution of sketch,

technical and working project documentation.

The technological activity implies the ability to

perform the following professional tasks: develop-

ment and application of automated design, develop-

ment, testing and maintenance of software; develop-

ment and application of methods and tools of manage-

ment of engineering activities and processes of soft-

ware life cycle; use of standard control methods, eval-

uation and quality assurance of software; ensuring

compliance of the developed software products and

technical documentation with Ukrainian and interna-

tional standards, speciﬁcations, departmental norma-

tive documents and standards of the enterprise; partic-

ipation in the research related to the subject of profes-

sional activities in accordance with approved objec-

tives and techniques. Production activities are the fol-

lowing: interaction with customers in the process of

implementation of the software project; participation

in software development processes; participation in

the creation of technical documentation on the results

of the works; participation in the preparation of tech-

nical documentation and established reporting in the

approved forms; planning and organizing your own

work; planning and coordination of software setup

and maintenance work; drawing up a technical task

for software development; organization of work of

small teams of program project executors; participa-

tion in the feasibility study of program projects; com-

missioning of the software; preventive and corrective

maintenance of the software product during opera-

tion; training and consulting of users on work with

the software system (Dubinina, 2016). However, the

researcher has not emphasized that most of these pro-

fessional tasks will be difﬁcult to accomplish without

having the rather developed communicative compe-

tence, including the foreign language communicative

competence.

Sydorov et al. (Sydorov et al., 2010) on the ex-

ample of the Professional Practice of Software Engi-

neering discipline puts forward the following require-

ments for the organization of professional training of

specialists in software engineering. First, students

should be prepared to adapt to speciﬁc work that is as

close as possible to their real work, and teachers must

be practically and professionally trained (in terms of

software development). Therefore, it is advisable to

conduct training within a software development com-

pany; involve professional developers in teaching dis-

ciplines; to organize practical classes according to

modern requirements. Second, students should inte-

grate their own knowledge and skills and direct the

results to software development, and teachers, using

appropriate teaching materials, should simplify this

integration. In their study, the authors have not fo-

cused on communicative training for future software

engineering professionals.

This deﬁciency of research in the national sci-

entiﬁc thought has been eliminated by some peda-

gogical studies. In particular, Kirilenko (Kirilenko,

2016), on the basis of the analysis of international re-

quirements for software engineering teaching (Cur-

riculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Pro-

grams in Software Engineering ACM / IEEE), notes

that the listed abilities include not only highly special-

ized engineering knowledge, skills and qualities, but

also “skills in effective reasoning, ability to work in a

multidisciplinary team, understanding of professional

and ethical responsibility for making engineering de-

cisions, ability to analyze and criticize decisions, peo-

ple management skills and understanding of the im-

portance of lifelong learning”.

Babii (Babii, 2012) considers the proﬁciency in

professional communication to be important for soft-

ware engineers, because “it is necessary to involve the

whole team of specialists for development of mod-

ern software, which requires knowledge of teamwork

skills, knowledge of psychology fundamentals, group

dynamics and communication, which is a guaran-

tee of achievement of professionally signiﬁcant re-

sults”. The researcher identiﬁes two groups of com-

petences that she considers the basis of the cognitive

component of the readiness for professional commu-

nication of future software engineers: instrumental

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

488

and specialized-professional competences. The ﬁrst

group, according to the researcher, includes the ability

to write and communicate in the native language (the

ability to use the language correctly depending on the

scope and purpose of communication, to make busi-

ness papers); knowledge of another language (prac-

tical knowledge of a foreign language in terms of

subjects due to professional needs); the use of oral

language within the framework of domestic, social

and political and professional subjects; the ability to

translate general economic texts from a foreign lan-

guage into a native language); research skills (ability

to apply research skills in specialized disciplines); the

ability to create technical documentation for a soft-

ware project. The second group includes the ability

to conduct business negotiations with business part-

ners and the ability to reasonably convince colleagues

of the correctness of the proposed solution, the ability

to convey their position to others.

Chirva (Chirva, 2008) believes that in today’s re-

alities there is a growing need for future software en-

gineers to develop the skills and abilities of dialogic

speech itself, which is conditioned by economic re-

forms being carried out in Ukraine at the present stage

(contacts of specialists of technical proﬁle with for-

eign partners when creating joint ventures, work with

imported equipment, etc.). The scientist assures that

students must be able to communicate effectively in

English. According to the requirements of the En-

glish for Speciﬁc Purposes (ESP) program, a prospec-

tive professional should be able to respond to ba-

sic ideas and identify relevant important information

during detailed discussions, discussions, formal talks,

lectures, related conversations with training and pro-

fession. The high level of foreign language commu-

nicative competence of future software engineers is a

guarantee of improvement of their professional level,

enrichment of knowledge in a speciality and success-

ful professional activity.

According to Bulakhova (Bulakhova, 2007), in

their professional activity, software engineers “must

actively cooperate with foreign partners, representa-

tives of different cultures and levels of professional

competence; be aware of the latest scientiﬁc and tech-

nological developments in their manufacturing ﬁeld,

using foreign sources of information. The success of

their professional activity depends on communication

skills and knowledge of a foreign language”. On this

basis, the author insists that for the effective acquiring

mastery of a foreign language, the following require-

ments must be taken into account: the orientation of

the teaching system to the formation of students’ sys-

temic vision of the subjects studied; ﬂexibility and

variability of content, taking into account the needs of

education and the individual; humanization of techni-

cal education; orientation on mastering new informa-

tion technologies; ensuring the methodological, spe-

cialized scientiﬁc and professional competence of the

specialist. While studying, students should be aware

of the substantive and procedural part of their future

professional activity.

The same opinion is emphasized by Strilets

(Strilets, 2010), pointing out that modern society

needs specialists in programming who have the sys-

tem thinking, are able to generate ideas, to be aware

of the responsibility for the consequences of the de-

cisions made, quickly adapt to new conditions, ﬁnd

ways to overcome problem situations; are able to nav-

igate the information space, quickly ﬁnd and process

the necessary information, use electronic communica-

tions, a variety of software when solving production

tasks. In the professional ﬁeld, software engineers

mainly use a foreign language when searching for and

processing information from Internet resources, pro-

gramming, and communicating with foreign partners

through electronic communications. Therefore, the

process of foreign language training of future special-

ists in software engineering is important. The author

highlights the following communicative skills of fu-

ture programmers: reading in various modes (search,

study) computer messages, system help programs,

speciﬁcations, instructions, articles in electronic pro-

fessional publications, materials of professional com-

munity forums, online workshops; participation in di-

alogue / discussion-dialogue, communicating both di-

rectly and through electronic means; production of a

monologue presentation; writing instructions, reports,

forum posts. Their formation is proposed to be imple-

mented in the process of the project methodology of

teaching English to future programmers using a dis-

tance course.

The high level of foreign language communica-

tion competence in the professional activity and pro-

fessional environment is considered to be a necessary

component of the characteristic of a modern IT spe-

cialist. According to the research of Viakh (Viakh,

2013), an IT specialist is considered competent if he

or she successfully completes the following tasks in

a foreign language: 1) ﬁnds the necessary informa-

tion in a foreign language text without assistance;

2) understands technical instructions, articles, edu-

cational texts in foreign language from popular and

promising areas of the IT industry without assistance;

3) uses tools that accelerate and reﬁne the compre-

hension of a foreign language text (various electronic

dictionaries, glossaries); 4) constantly improves for-

eign language skills; 5) makes a structured written

presentation in a foreign language; 6) conducts com-

Content Analysis of Course Books and Online Courses for Teaching English for Speciﬁc Purposes for IT Professionals

489

petent correspondence in a foreign language with the

customer, employer through messenger programs, e-

mail; 7) states the facts in a foreign language clearly

orally and in writing; 8) competently and objectively

verbally presents in a foreign language themselves,

their skills, experience, goals, aspirations; 9) draws up

an effective competent resume in a foreign language,

is able to sell their skills; 10) makes oral presenta-

tion in a foreign language; 11) formulates and com-

municates ideas, submits proposals both verbally and

in writing in a foreign language; 12) provides techni-

cal guidance in a foreign language, both orally and in

writing; 13) advises clients and colleagues in a for-

eign language; 14) explains information to different

audiences in a foreign language; 15) clariﬁes infor-

mation for themselves in a foreign language; 16) ef-

fectively agrees with the customer in a foreign lan-

guage on: a) the subject area; b) product require-

ments; c) payment; d) terms; e) support; 17) dis-

tinguishes the main from the heard broadcast in a

foreign language; 18) understands oral language di-

rectly, via telephone or messenger programs; 19) un-

derstands and takes into account the concept of time

in different countries; 20) knows domestic and inter-

national business etiquette; 21) possesses sociocul-

tural knowledge of other countries (holidays, week-

ends, greetings, taboo topics, etc.) and takes them

into account when communicating; 22) is engaged in

professional self-education, reading professional lit-

erature, blogs, forums in a foreign language; 23) par-

ticipates in projects, project planning, project man-

agement and evaluation of projects using a foreign

language. Thus, the researcher concludes that for-

eign language communication competence is a deci-

sive factor in employment and career development in

the IT ﬁeld.

3 PEDAGOGICAL CONDITIONS

FOR THE FORMATION OF

THE COMMUNICATIVE

COMPETENCE OF IT

PROFESSIONALS

The conditions under which communicative compe-

tence of modern professionals is formed have been

investigated (Kazhan et al., 2020; Kraievska, 2014;

Novgorodtseva, 2008; Yeﬁmova, 2014; Yermakova,

2015), in particular, communicative competence for-

mation of future IT specialists has been studied by

Bulakhova (Bulakhova, 2007), Viakh (Viakh, 2013),

Chirva (Chirva, 2008) and others.

Yeﬁmova (Yeﬁmova, 2014) determines the fol-

lowing pedagogical conditions, the observance of

which ensures that students achieve a higher level of

communication competence formation: 1) develop-

ment of teacher empathy; 2) development of commu-

nication skills; 3) individualization of training (intro-

duction of academic counseling (tutoring)).

Kraievska (Kraievska, 2014) lists the pedagogi-

cal conditions for the development of communicative

competence of future agrarian managers and includes

there the need for the gradual formation of motivation

for the communicative activity in the process of their

professional training. The other pedagogical condi-

tion is the development of the content of communica-

tive training of future agrarian managers on the basis

of systematic and integrative approaches. The imple-

mentation of these conditions is the basis for applying

the methodology of complex formation of structural

components of communicative competence using in-

formation and communication technology, which is

advanced by the researcher as the third pedagogical

condition.

Novgorodtseva (Novgorodtseva, 2008) deter-

mines that the formation of the professional commu-

nicative competence of future engineers at higher ed-

ucation institutions will be effective under the fol-

lowing organizational and pedagogical conditions: 1)

professional training orientation to the professional-

communication competence of future engineers; 2)

development of the author’s training courses aimed at

the formation of the professional and communicative

competence; 3) development and use of the algorithm

of formation of the professional communicative com-

petence of future engineers, containing three interre-

lated stages: preparatory (knowledge), basic (activ-

ity), and ﬁnal (reﬂective) ones; 4) use of pedagogical

technologies, a complex of didactic means in the pro-

cess of professional training of future engineers; 5)

development of a system of criteria for assessing the

levels of the professional communicative competence

of a future engineer.

Viakh (Viakh, 2013) has identiﬁed the follow-

ing conditions for the formation of foreign-language

communicative competence of future specialists in

the ﬁeld of information technology: systematic learn-

ing the industry-speciﬁc content in a foreign lan-

guage, modeling the professional activities of future

specialists in the ﬁeld of information technology by

means of a foreign language, implementation of the

principles of mixed learning materials in teaching ma-

terials. The researcher has paid particular attention to

the use of information and communication technolo-

gies in the process of forming foreign communica-

tion skills of future specialists in the ﬁeld of informa-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

490

tion technologies, namely applying instant messaging

programs Skype, Google Talk, ICQ, QIP, Miranda,

professional electronic journals (Tech Crunch, Com-

puter, EEEM), blogs (A + Computer Science Blog,

Pastacode computer science blog, etc.) and country

sites.

Exploring the methodological approaches to

teaching English dialogues of future software engi-

neers, Chirva (Chirva, 2008) believes that creating a

favorable environment with the use of level differen-

tiation is important for training each student accord-

ing to the level of their academic achievements and

abilities. In her opinion, it is advisable to introduce a

computer program for the organization of differenti-

ated teaching of English dialogues of future software

engineers in a technical institution of higher educa-

tion, which is justiﬁed by the need to improve the

quality of foreign language training of future soft-

ware engineers at all levels; the need to obtain the

desired result is to increase students’ skills and com-

petences. Instead, the researcher Ya. Bulakhova iden-

tiﬁes meaningful and procedural pedagogical condi-

tions for teaching software engineers, which take into

account the connection between social contract for

engineering training, contradictions at national higher

education institutions and the speciﬁcs of teaching a

foreign language at a university (Bulakhova, 2007).

Based on the research of Yermakova (Yermakova,

2015), we follow this understanding of the pedagog-

ical condition: a circumstance on which the perfor-

mance of professional activity depends and in which

different results are possible.

The analysis of modern requirements for the orga-

nization of professional training of software engineers

in Ukraine and abroad, the generalization of the expe-

rience of forming communicative competence of IT

specialists allow us to deﬁne the following organiza-

tional and pedagogical conditions for the formation of

communicative competence of software engineering

specialists at institutions of higher education (Symo-

nenko, 2019):

• complementing the content of curricula and

educational-methodological complexes of foreign

language disciplines with exercises, activities,

texts and patterns of effective professional com-

munication;

• application of interactive forms of training of se-

lected professional disciplines, taking into ac-

count the speciﬁcs of professional activities of

software engineers in the implementation of dom-

inant methods (project method, method of teach-

ing in collaboration (small groups), brainstorm-

ing, case method);

• use of synchronous and asynchronous commu-

nication tools, special Internet resources, social

online networks and virtual communities in the

teaching of foreign language and vocational disci-

plines in foreign language in classroom and extra-

curricular work;

• the efﬁciency of the process of forming techniques

and methods of interpersonal interaction, which

form the basis of professional communication of

software engineers is ensured by involving stu-

dents in communication activities, which maxi-

mally simulates the process of professional inter-

action and creates the conditions for profession-

ally and personally-oriented professionals.

4 CONTENT ANALYSIS OF

COURSE BOOKS, TEXTBOOKS

AND ONLINE COURSES FOR

TEACHING ENGLISH FOR IT

PROFESSIONALS

The curricula of some specialities of the ﬁeld of

knowledge 12 “Information technology” of higher ed-

ucation institutions of Ukraine regarding the avail-

ability and scope of foreign language disciplines have

been analysed. The range of foreign language disci-

plines is as follows: foreign language, foreign lan-

guage for speciﬁc purposes, profound foreign lan-

guage, business foreign language, foreign language

for scientists.

Foreign languages at Ukrainian higher education

institutions are the part of the humanities cycle. The

foreign language for speciﬁc purposes discipline is

obligatory as it is stated in the higher education stan-

dard of Ukraine and is usually taught in the ﬁrst and

second years. Other language disciplines can be se-

lective by students.

Learning a foreign language for professional pur-

poses during the ﬁrst and second years can be a

challenge both for language instructors and students,

because students lack knowledge in their speciality,

since professional disciplines are taught to senior stu-

dents. Moreover, as the results of the national en-

trance exam and university foreign language entrance

tests show, the vast majority of ﬁrst-year students ma-

joring in engineering, technology, agricultural science

have a very low level of the foreign language proﬁ-

ciency (A1), and the progress to the higher level of an

independent user (B2) becomes a very complicated

process.

In order to supplement the content of curricula and

educational and methodological complexes of foreign

language disciplines with exercises, activities, texts

Content Analysis of Course Books and Online Courses for Teaching English for Speciﬁc Purposes for IT Professionals

491

and patterns of effective professional communication

we have analyzed the contents of course books and

textbooks for teaching English at higher education in-

stitutions, and in particular for specialists in computer

science, information technology, Internet technology

and software engineering. The similar research has

been carried out by Jodoin and Singer (Jodoin and

Singer, 2020) to analyze the contents of English text-

books to ﬁnd out whether this material is used effec-

tively to train university students in terms of SDG.

To study the content of teaching foreign lan-

guages for professional purposes for IT professionals,

we have analysed existing English language course

books, textbooks and distance courses for information

technology specialists, computer engineering, soft-

ware engineering and computer science students. The

following aspects have been taken into account: the

presence of tasks and activities for the development of

all four language skills (reading, speaking, listening,

writing); grammar and vocabulary focus; the profes-

sional orientation of the content; the presence of job-

related situations; the availability of additional mate-

rials and resources for self-study.

The ESP textbook by Goltsova (Goltsova, 2002)

“The English Language Guide for PC Users and Pro-

grammers” provides educational materials for teach-

ing English to technical students and students study-

ing the English language, computer science and ad-

vanced computer technology. Each of the 25 lessons

has the sections: Grammar and Vocabulary and Read-

ing. The ﬁrst section contains materials for learn-

ing English grammar in the traditional format. The

second section contains a list of words for one or

more texts and general exercises for vocabulary train-

ing on the main topics of computer science and pro-

gramming. The beneﬁts of the manual are its origi-

nal structure and the use of basic special vocabulary,

but the disadvantages are the moral obsolescence of

the texts, the absence of listening activities and the

lack of focus on developing communication skills, in-

cluding the lack of dialogue practicing and job-related

phrases.

The English for Internet Technology Profession-

als guide (Vichugov and Krasnova, 2012) is aimed

at developing language skills and skills in the lan-

guage use in the ﬁeld of professional communica-

tion. It contains authentic texts, tasks for listening

and speaking, and vocabulary on seven topics: history

of the Internet, Internet privacy, Internet services, on-

line payment systems, E-mail service, personal web

page, Internet security. The beneﬁts of this guide in-

clude the availability of exercises and tasks for prac-

ticing communication skills (discussions, dialogues,

reﬂections), but the vocabulary is limited to only one

ﬁeld – Internet technologies, which will not obviously

be enough for IT specialists to communicate.

The Computer Engineering course book (Bon-

darev et al., 2014) presents the system of authen-

tic texts for vocabulary acquisition on different IT-

related topics: computer and computing, software,

virtual reality, computer security and others and sets

of exercises and activities. The course book com-

prises 10 units which have the similar structure, each

unit includes lead-in, pronunciation, word study, word

building, grammar, reading, writing and speaking

tasks. The Get Real section provides links to up-to-

date Internet sources which can be helpful for speak-

ing and writing activity performance. Speaking tasks

are predominantly aimed at pair and group work, role

plays and deal with the job-related situations or stu-

dent theoretical knowledge in the ﬁeld of information

technology or their practical experience.

The English for Computer Science Students text-

book (Smirnova and Yudelson, 2017) is offered

for the analytical or home reading of vocationally-

oriented texts, vocabulary boosting, English-speaking

skills in oral and written forms. It consists of 9

lessons, each of which in addition to the industry-

speciﬁc texts contains a number of interesting exer-

cises aimed at mastering scientiﬁc and technical vo-

cabulary, namely terms, abbreviations, acronyms, etc.

The guide is aimed at students, graduate students and

anyone with a basic knowledge of English and inter-

ested in current issues related to the emergence, de-

velopment and future of computers in the global com-

puterization of society.

The advantages of the Ukrainian and Russian

coursebooks analysed above are their original struc-

ture, the use of authentic texts, the presence of basic

professional vocabulary and activities for its boosting.

These teaching aids and these books have not tasks

for the development of listening skills, not all course

books focus on activities for enhancing communica-

tion, certain examples of samples of dialogues cannot

be found, tasks for problem-solving are absent.

The Oxford English for Information Technology

course book (Glendinning and McEwan, 2006) is in-

tended for students majoring in information technol-

ogy and computer engineering, for professionals al-

ready working in the ﬁeld and who wish to improve

and expand their English language skills in the con-

text of information and communication technologies.

Compared to the ﬁrst edition of 2003 (Glendinning

and McEwan, 2003), the 2006 edition takes into ac-

count the latest developments in this fast-growing sec-

tor, as reﬂected in the content update. New mate-

rials reﬂect changes in areas such as speciﬁcations,

new technologies and practices. The student’s book

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

492

consists of 25 lessons covering a wide range of IT

topics. The materials of the course book include au-

thentic texts and visuals taken from textbooks, news-

papers, popular computer magazines, online news-

groups, webpages, manuals and advertisements. Each

lesson contains tasks for language skills development,

and every ﬁfth lesson focuses on developing listen-

ing skills through authentic interviews with IT pro-

fessionals. For students who already have rather good

knowledge of English vocabulary in IT, there are ad-

ditional special reading texts. The teacher’s guide in-

cludes a theoretical introduction to the topic of each

lesson for non-IT teachers to better achieve the learn-

ing goals. However, the manual does not sufﬁciently

focus on software development issues, communica-

tion with the team members and customers, which is

an important topic for training software engineering

professionals.

Among the analyzed publications the Express

Publishing editions of Career Paths series are of spe-

cial interest. The series is intended for profession-

als who want to improve their English language skills

in the work environment. They include a special vo-

cabulary and texts, step-by-step tutorials that immerse

learners into four major language aspects: reading,

listening, speaking and writing. The course book con-

tains three books in three difﬁculty levels (A1, A2 and

B1) and offers over 400 lexical terms and phrases.

Each lesson includes a test to check reading com-

prehension, vocabulary and listening skills, and help

students develop their writing and oral communica-

tion skills. The Career Paths: Information Technol-

ogy Guide (Evans et al., 2011c) covers topics related

to computer design: components, hardware, software,

Internet security, web design, and the future of the IT

industry. The Career Paths: Computing Guide (Evans

et al., 2011a) is intended for professionals who want

to improve their English communication skills in the

computer industry. It includes topics related to com-

puter hardware, general applications, operating sys-

tems, online communications, and cloud computing.

The Career Paths: Software Engineering Guide

(Evans et al., 2011b) discusses topics in software de-

velopment, software testing, user interface, modeling,

and career options in software engineering. An im-

portant structural element of this publication is dia-

logues speciﬁc to the profession and the numerous

job-related texts in the ﬁeld of software engineering.

Therefore, this guide combines specialized vocabu-

lary and professional context to form necessary com-

munication skills for a career. The textbook contains

three books of different levels: Elementary (Book 1),

Pre-intermediate (Book 2), and Intermediate (Book

3). The books contain 15 lessons of different top-

ics, each topic focuses on a speciﬁc reading context

and serves to form a certain communicative skill. For

example, the second lesson on Types of Computers

contains the text for reading in the form of a maga-

zine article, which involves new vocabulary acquisi-

tion (computer, computing cluster, desktop, embed-

ded computer, laptop, notebook, PC, server, tablet,

workstation) and aimed at forming ability to make

plans. However, despite the elaborate structure, pro-

fessionally oriented exercises, texts and dialogues, the

disadvantage of the course book is that there is no

consistency between the topic of the lesson, the vo-

cabulary words to learn and the skills formed during

the lesson.

The Career Paths book series offers applications

which can be available for self-study on personal

computers and portable devices. Applications provide

all the activities present in the original books in the

user-friendly format, all the exercises from the main

books have been adapted as interactive ones. Sup-

plementary activities which are absent in the course

books include video comprehension on the topics of

units. Applications allow to evaluate and trace easily

the student’s progress automatically without an En-

glish instructor. The glossary included in the applica-

tion allows students to check the word meaning in the

context and to listen to the audio pronunciation of the

word.

The English for Information Technology 1, 2

(Hill, 2012) books are intended for IT students and

company employees. The course books cover topics

in current IT developments, including working in IT,

IT systems, data communication, administration, in-

teractions, development and IT solutions. The mate-

rials of the course book include authentic texts and

visuals taken from up-to-date sources. Each lesson

contains tasks for language skills development, and

every last section of the unit focuses on job-related

situations (business matters). Numerous activities in-

cluding vocabulary acquisition, pronunciation train-

ing, speaking, and listening are designed to work in

pairs and to get feedback from partners in different

forms. The course also provides online teacher sup-

port, CD-ROMs with audio ﬁles and interactive glos-

saries in US English and British English for students.

The Professional English in Use: ICT manual

(Esteras and Fabre, 2007) covers a wide range of

topics in information technology, including personal

computers, word processing, ﬁnancial software and

databases, multimedia applications, e-mail, web de-

sign and Internet security. The course book which in-

cludes 40 units is designed as a reference and practical

manual for independent work. The structure of each

unit is similar: the unit includes a text for reading,

Content Analysis of Course Books and Online Courses for Teaching English for Speciﬁc Purposes for IT Professionals

493

exercises for reading comprehension and new vocabu-

lary acquisition checking, and writing tasks or links to

online exercises. The manual can be used as a supple-

mentary aid to the main course book of professional

English.

The Information Technology Workshop (Demetri-

ades, 2003) course book covers numerous topics in IT,

including Internet, multimedia, programming, careers

in IT etc. The course book includes 28 units which

have the similar structure: each unit includes a pre-

reading task, a text for reading, reading comprehen-

sion exercises, a vocabulary exercise, a task for writ-

ing and a ‘get real’ task which gives a possibility to

implement new knowledge in real-life or job-related

situations. The course book can be used as a supple-

mentary book to the main course book of professional

English.

The Infotech: English for Computer Users course

book is intended for students who need to improve

their professional English skills. Compared to previ-

ous editions, the fourth edition (Esteras, 2008) takes

into account the latest updates in information tech-

nology and includes signiﬁcant content revision. The

course book comprises 8 modules covering computer

devices, software, Internet, computers jobs and future

of computers. Every unit includes reading, listening,

speaking and writing activities, a language work sec-

tion with exercises. The main course book can be sup-

plemented with an interactive workbook which con-

tains different activities according to the content of

units.

The English for ICT Studies in Higher Education

Studies course book (Fitzgerald, 2011) differs signif-

icantly from the English course books for IT profes-

sionals as it is designed for learning the academic lan-

guage. It is intended for students who are going to

study ICT as an academic discipline or as a major at

a higher educational establishment, it covers a wide

range of topics: ICT in the workplace, ICT in edu-

cation, contentious issues in computing etc. The ac-

tivities of 12 units of the course book are primarily

aimed at development of student skills necessary for

lecture listening and class participating and include

reading, listening, vocabulary boosting exercises and

writing and speaking assignments. Vocabulary banks

and skills bank presented in the course book help stu-

dents to review the contents of each lesson.

The results of the conducted analysis are pre-

sented in table 1.

Top world universities and companies offer nu-

merous online courses on foreign languages. En-

glish courses for IT professionals can also be found

in the web, including courses on popular platforms.

The popular Udemy platform offers the English for

IT professionals course (Udemy, 2021) which is in-

tended for students majoring in IT or people who al-

ready work in the IT industry. The main aim of the

course is speciﬁc vocabulary and grammar acquisi-

tion. The course covers profession-related topics such

as IT jobs, equipment and work environment, pro-

gramming and others. As course authors state, “care-

fully chosen grammar topics . . . help . . . speak more

conﬁdent at work and about work”. The course in-

cludes video lectures, tasks for checking comprehen-

sion, and term wordlists. The distinctive features of

the course are the following: the content of the course

is quite up-to-date, the grammar rules are explained

in the profession-related context, all the video lectures

have English subtitles for better understanding, all the

tasks are closely related to the lectures. The signiﬁ-

cant disadvantage of the course is rather limited com-

munication with learners and teachers, sharing their

opinions with other students in the course, only one

task presupposes making comments on the topic.

The English for information technology online

course (www.english4it.com, 2021) covers IT ca-

reers, computer ethics, freelancing and other com-

prehensive topics concerning the information tech-

nology industry. The course consists of 28 units

of the similar structure comprising reading and lis-

tening comprehension exercises, speaking and writ-

ing tasks, spelling and recognition wordlists which

present main terms in the context and allow to listen

to word pronunciation. Basic activities are computer-

graded, while advanced activities (speaking and writ-

ing) are teacher-graded. The student progress can be

traced in the grade report which presents grades, units

completed, time tracking.

The content analysis of course books and text-

books for English learning at higher education insti-

tutions, in particular, for professionals in the ﬁeld of

information technology and software engineering, has

shown the abstract nature of the used case studies and

low applied importance of the chosen topics of ed-

ucational interaction. Therefore, as a result of the

analysis of English language teaching aids in infor-

mation technology, computer engineering, computing

and software engineering, we can conclude that some

of them can be used in the learning process, however,

their use requires thorough reﬁnement and modiﬁca-

tion.

In order to improve the content of English lan-

guage learning to form communicative competence

of software engineering specialists at higher educa-

tion institutions, taking into account all the advan-

tages and disadvantages of existing teaching aids we

have developed and implemented the following teach-

ing aids(TSATU, 2021b):

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

494

Table 1: Analysis of course books and textbooks for teaching English for IT professionals.

Course Book CEF Vocabulary Grammar Reading Listening Speaking Writing Resources

level

English Language

Guide for PC Users

and Programmers

B1-B2 + + +

English for Internet

Technology Profes-

sionals

B1-B2 + + + + +

English for Computer

Science Students

B1-B2 + + + + +

Computer Engineering B1-B2 + + + + +

Oxford English for In-

formation Technology

B2-C1 + + + + + +

Career Paths: Informa-

tion Technology

A1-B1 + + + + + + Application

Career Paths: Comput-

ing

A1-B1 + + + + + + Application

Career Paths: Software

Engineering

A1-B1 + + + + + + Application

English for Information

Technology

A1-

A2,

A2-B1

+ + + + + + Interactive

glossary

Professional English in

Use: ICT

B1-C1 + + +

Information Technol-

ogy Workshop

B1 + + + +

Infotech: English for

Computer Users

B1-B2 + + + + + + Interactive

book

English for ICT Studies

in Higher Education

B2-C2 + + + + + +

• The Improve Your Listening and Speaking for Fu-

ture Software Engineering Professionals guide.

• The Business English Essentials for Software En-

gineers course book.

• The Dictionary of Acronyms and Abbreviations

for Information Technology and Software Engi-

neering Specialists.

• Methodological Recommendations for the For-

mation of Communicative Competence of Future

Specialists in Software Engineering.

• Distant courses for studying English, English for

Special Purposes, Business English and Profound

English.

The Improve Your Listening and Speaking Guide

is intended for students of IT specialities. It is aimed

at teaching listening for better comprehending for-

eign language information, understanding general in-

formation, ﬁnding out the main ideas, extracting cer-

tain details or facts, and predicting key information

before listening. The guide includes 24 sections cov-

ering a wide range of information technology issues:

computer history, modern computers and their use in

society, the Internet, global communications, wire-

less technology, computer games, digital libraries,

software interfaces, graphical interface, software and

others. The texts are selected from original modern

sources, taking into account the latest trends in infor-

mation technology and interests of modern students.

The guide contains numerous diagrams, charts and

illustrations that facilitate the perception of informa-

tion and tasks. The manual includes audio ﬁles with

scripts.

Each section contains a list of speciﬁc terms, lis-

tening tasks, and professional texts. The activities

cover a number of questions that require not only spe-

cialized but also personal general knowledge regard-

ing IT problems. Listening tasks vary in their form:

answering questions, writing down terms, selecting

facts in a report, ﬁlling in a chart or table using facts

from a report, ﬁlling gaps, etc. After-listening ac-

tivities typically involve discussion questions that de-

Content Analysis of Course Books and Online Courses for Teaching English for Speciﬁc Purposes for IT Professionals

495

velop speaking skills in the professional software en-

gineering environment.

The Business English Essentials for Software En-

gineers course book is intended for senior students of

IT specialities. It should be noted that the manual

is designed to deepen the students’ language skills in

reading and speaking, improve their writing skills, as

well as develop their ability to process original and

prepare their own documents in English. The guide

consists of 10 units covering the main types of busi-

ness oral and written communication in software en-

gineering. At the beginning of each block the list

of active vocabulary is given. Post-text exercises are

aimed at productive and reproductive activities. To

simplify the processing of authentic and didactic ma-

terials, the guide contains a large number of samples

of English-language documents in software engineer-

ing and information technology in general, intended

for both classroom use and self-study. The informa-

tion is retrieved and adapted from modern online ma-

terials and resources.

The Glossary of Software Engineering Acronyms

and Abbreviations contains 12,000 terms and is in-

tended for students who study IT and it is also useful

for teachers of professional disciplines who train fu-

ture IT specialists. The glossary also includes essen-

tial slang shortenings necessary for written commu-

nication among IT professionals and symbolic emoti-

cons.

Methodological Recommendations for the Forma-

tion of Communicative Competence of Future Spe-

cialists in Software Engineering provide advice for

oral and written communication in the work environ-

ment and in the software development process. The

manual is intended for students who are interested in

software engineering as a ﬁeld of information tech-

nology, which deals with the application of a system-

atic approach to the development, use and mainte-

nance of software, and the study of these approaches,

i.e. the application of engineering principles to soft-

ware. The manual also features an English-Ukrainian

phrasebook for software engineering professionals.

The guide contains 12 topics that address situations,

problems, and tasks that arise during professional ac-

tivities in software development. Tips on writing busi-

ness letters and cover letters, talking on the phone,

writing a resume, looking for a job, holding a telecon-

ference, presentation or meeting using professional

English vocabulary and word-speciﬁc words are pro-

vided. Useful phrases for communicating with clients

and colleagues are also given. Each topic presents

language patterns of business professional communi-

cation in the ﬁeld of software engineering.

The materials of the manual are presented in the

form of communication patterns, which are easily

perceived by students in the learning process, because

they have a standard structure and are used in typical

professional situations. Having studied the language

patterns, presented in both English and Ukrainian,

grouped in the manual according to professional situ-

ations, students will quickly be able to recall them in

real-world professional activities and demonstrate the

high level of communicative competence.

Combining disparate means of communication

and purposeful inﬂuence on the formation of com-

municative competence is enabled by distance learn-

ing technologies. In order to support the student

self-study, distance learning courses for studying En-

glish (TSATU, 2021c), English for Special Purposes

(TSATU, 2021d) and Business English (TSATU,

2021a) on the Moodle platform have been developed.

The courses contain basic theoretical materials as

well as additional materials: theoretical explanation

of grammatical phenomena in the native language,

audio and video materials with relevant tasks for

understanding comprehension, conversational topics

with tasks and comprehension check, texts for extra-

curricular reading with tasks. The main question

types in the courses are those which are the best suit-

able for learning foreign languages: drag and drop

into text, drag and drop markers, drag and drop onto

image, essays, matching, gap ﬁll, multiple choice, and

true/false ones.

The topics of the course are in strict accordance

with the curriculum of the discipline. The student

progress in the course has been checked after each

topic. In order to facilitate communication in a for-

eign language, a chat has been created in the dis-

tant courses to ask questions, leave comments, answer

questions, and share useful information.

To enter the postgraduate course, students who

have got the bachelor’s degree are to pass the national

entrance exam in a foreign language, so the foreign

language training must include aspects of preparation

for the exam. In this respect, the online profound En-

glish course has been developed because of the ne-

cessity to deepen the students’ knowledge of English

and to facilitate student training to pass the national

entrance exam to enter the master’s degree course.

The units of the course cover general English topics:

family and relationship, education, work, science and

technology, etc. The course provides explanation of

grammar rules, grammar materials, vocabulary lists

and exercises for training. The emphasized aspects

are reading and use of English, since namely these as-

pects are included in national entrance exam tasks.

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

496

5 CONCLUSIONS

Our research has made it possible to identify the pro-

gressive ideas of modern pedagogical science and to

develop recommendations for improving the forma-

tion of communicative competence of IT specialists

at higher education institutions. Vocational training

of IT professionals in the 21st century should in-

volve signiﬁcant intensiﬁcation of language training,

whereby synergies should be achieved through a set

of training measures of active vocational and linguis-

tic training within separate practical courses; foreign

language training should have the real-life ﬂexible

and variable context, taking into account the ﬁeld of

knowledge, its current state and sustainable develop-

ment strategies and ideas. In the vocational training

of IT professionals coherent problem modules with

elements of private, business, academic professional

and scientiﬁc communication in both oral and writ-

ten formats should be implemented. It is necessary

to emphasize that foreign language teachers need to

modify the content, forms and methods of teaching

foreign languages to meet the requirements of profes-

sional communities in order to ensure the proper level

of English command.

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