AT the Instituto de Idiomas, University of Navarra, the Dietetics students who have an intermediate level of English (on completing a placement test) first do a 30 hour integrated-skills module in General English using ‘Intermediate Matters’ ( Jan Bell, Roger Gower, Longman). During this part of the course much of what the 16 students cover will facilitate their ability to read texts in the later Specific Texts module.

Secondly, the students do a 15 hour specific text module. A needs analysis based on questionnaires distributed to the students and interviews with lecturers in the School of Dietetics showed that the emphasis of the Specific text module should be on reading skills.The content of some of the texts given to the second year Dietetic students is chosen with the Dietetics Director of Studies according to the subjects they have studied in the first and second years in their faculty, and we try to serve as a bridge preparing them for certain subjects in their following year in the faculty.

Many of our texts are based on the goals set out by the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education (NACNE) in 1991 together with the UK’s Government Health of the Nation white paper proposals in 1993.

Text Sources for our ESP course.

1) Text books. 4) Customer Food Information Leaflets.

2) Nutrition /Medical Journals. 5) Food Labelling Information.

3. Abstracts from Nutrition Journals. 6) Texts from the World Wide Web

In addition to using the WWW as an important source of authentic texts on Dietetics and Human Nutrition, we are now creating tailor-made material for our students. This consists of a wide range of interactive exercises written in JavaScript, which form part of a wider ESP website project based here at the University’s Instituto de Idiomas. The following "sample class" shows how we have managed to integrate the various web-based resources into the existing programme.

This table gives the framework for a typical class on the topic of ‘FAT IN OUR FOOD’.

PRE-NET ACTIVITIES ( In the classroom, working in pairs)

Activity 1 (15 minutes): Gap-filling exercise from a leaflet from ‘The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food’. Pre-teaching vocabulary on a specific area e.g. ‘Less fat, less risk’. The vocabulary includes: nouns -saturates,poly-unsaturates, mono-unsaturates, cholesterol,risk, heart disease etc. adjectives - fatty, lean, fat-free

verbs - to trim, to cut down, to give up, to increase.

Activity 2 (15 minutes): Answering open-ended questions and interpreting statistical information from a food information leaflet from ‘Tesco’.

NET ACTIVITIES (In the Self-Access Centre)

Activity 3 (15 minutes): The sixteen students sit down in pairs at the eight (of the twenty) reserved computers in the Self-Access Centre.They spend about 15 minutes doing the first ‘gap-filling text’ (involving mainly reading and speaking in English) on ‘Fat content in our diet’ which recycles vocabulary on ‘FAT’ , much of which they have already seen in class. If they have any difficulties they can press the ‘HELP’ button to give them half of the word. They can print out their finished version to take back to class.

Activity 4 (15 minutes): The students continue with the second text in the same way as with the first.

They then print it out to take away.

By integrating the WWW into the Dietetics Reading Skills course, we must also remember the computer’s ability to display text and then delete words,jumble texts,move bits of text about on the screen etc., and above all the way it can offer the student choices about what action to take, making it ideal for practising new reading strategies. As I’ve shown, texts can be downloaded from a web-site and the teacher can quickly prepare tailor-made questions for his/her group.

Activity 5 (15 minutes): Back in the classroom, the students do a text downloaded from the WWW (http://www.eatright.org) on ‘The ABCs of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol’ and containing a variety of question types.e.g. cloze/gap-filling procedures, giving a title to a text and labelling paragraphs, finding synonyms and antonyms in the text, reassembling a text/jigsaw reading.

Activity 6 (15 minutes): Finally the students do a text from the Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews to help them become familiar with reading abstracts etc. The students found the references to Spain and Spanish food to be particularly stimulating.

http://www.eatright.org http://www.tesco.co.uk

For further information contact: psainsbury@unav.es