English for Agriculture: Step Ahead

Abstract

Design of the Book English has reached more spectrums of communication, ranging from basic colloquial communication to specific and technical realm of communication. University students, as learner of English typically grappling with academic and occupational nuance of English. Devoted to meeting that academically and occupationally contextualized language learning and language use, English for Agriculture is developed by taking into account the contents and skills that are pondered crucial by students at the Faculty of Agriculture. Level and Aim of the Book The book is developed within the framework of socio-cognitive approach, seeing language used in different contexts involving integrated language domains, i.e. speaking, writing, reading, and listening. These skills are always integrated, though not entirely, since listening serves as additional skill. The approach, bound to Common European Framework (CEFR), is also operative in establishing the gradation of communicative language abilities across units. Devoted to introductory level of Academic English, the language contents involved only pertain to A2 and B1 levels at CEFR level. This gradation applies to all three-objective units in the book. It is expected, by applying integrated-skill language learning in context, that the book can cater for various language learning needs of students at the very faculty. Foreword to Teachers and Students The book is graded from simple to complex language tasks, ranging from A2 to B1. This is meant to allow teachers structure their instruction in a way that scaffolds students’ performance throughout the course. The integrated-language skills in each unit also serves as guideline to plan their lesson plan. In order to cater for students’ various performance, the book includes enrichment section wherein students can further practice their language mastery, therefore allowing them to be independent. Despite the inclusion of contents related to Agricultural studies, this book lies at the language end on the content-language continuum. The languagefocused approach is chosen as the book is meant to be an introduction to

English

specific to Agricultural studies. As such, the content related to agriculture is only meant to be the theme characterizing every unit included in the book. To scaffold the understanding on technical vocabularies used in Agriculture studies, the book includes specific task in a form of vocabulary log.