This book was conceived with the intention to provide students interested in the issues relating to sport, disease prevention, health promotion with a practical tool to learn English, by exposing them to the language used in a series of relevant official documents. It aims at developing and enhancing students’ study strategies for academic and research purposes, enabling them to handle the kind of written English that they will be concerned with as an integral part of their academic path. The disciplines of Sports Science and Health Promotion is often merely limited to technical-practical content without any significant links to socio-cultural contexts, critical thinking and knowledge acquisition. The reason for this can be probably traced back to a number of factors such as the lack of consideration given to such disciplines in the university curricula of many countries, the consequent lack of researchers engaged in promoting this field in connection with foreign language teaching. The nature of Sports Science and Health Promotion, instead, should be reviewed in the light of a critical pedagogical perspective linking it to the humanities, critical thinking (Kirk and Haerens 2014) and the other disciplines they intersect – including medicine, physiology, psychology, anthropology, pedagogy, economics, law, etc. By presenting a series of issues and topics which are relevant for the students’ field of study, specialization and work, the volume tries to enable them to gain a set of multiple skills such as communicative competence, techniques of textual analysis, and knowledge acquisition. It further provides students with the vocabulary of a specialised discourse to satisfy their communicative needs and demands as final users. Such a vocabulary should be recognised and processed with the purpose of enhancing communication. The identification of terms and their codification into conceptual systems appears central to effectively employ and understand the language. As Fazio (2012: 14) highlights, “the relation between epistemology and specialized discourse appears strict in the sense that a specialist’s use of the language is not occasional but rather reflects an intense meta-linguistic activity implying a highly accurate choice of terms. This is the first implicit condition for achieving communication objectives […] mediating between the result obtained and the resources used”. Through controlled language use, students can practise the language they need, consolidating their linguistic skills while working on their specialist knowledge through reading, writing, speaking and study skills – including those required for undertaking some initial research. Specifically, they can practise on: developing strategies to improve their ability to comprehend specialised texts, developing strategies to produce more coherent writing, adopting various approaches for dealing with new and unknown vocabulary, exploring research techniques and resources, promoting learner social autonomy. Indeed, autonomy is the necessary condition for effective learning, since it enhances students’ capacity for critical thinking and responsibility (Benson 2001). In a society where lifelong learning is more and more valued, students should be equipped with strategies to learn how to learn. However, since learning is a personal process, it can only be efficient if learners want to learn; the recognition of responsibility for their learning is thus considered a first step towards autonomy (Little 2000).

Promoting Health through Sport: EFL Resources for Students

nisco
2020-01-01

Abstract

This book was conceived with the intention to provide students interested in the issues relating to sport, disease prevention, health promotion with a practical tool to learn English, by exposing them to the language used in a series of relevant official documents. It aims at developing and enhancing students’ study strategies for academic and research purposes, enabling them to handle the kind of written English that they will be concerned with as an integral part of their academic path. The disciplines of Sports Science and Health Promotion is often merely limited to technical-practical content without any significant links to socio-cultural contexts, critical thinking and knowledge acquisition. The reason for this can be probably traced back to a number of factors such as the lack of consideration given to such disciplines in the university curricula of many countries, the consequent lack of researchers engaged in promoting this field in connection with foreign language teaching. The nature of Sports Science and Health Promotion, instead, should be reviewed in the light of a critical pedagogical perspective linking it to the humanities, critical thinking (Kirk and Haerens 2014) and the other disciplines they intersect – including medicine, physiology, psychology, anthropology, pedagogy, economics, law, etc. By presenting a series of issues and topics which are relevant for the students’ field of study, specialization and work, the volume tries to enable them to gain a set of multiple skills such as communicative competence, techniques of textual analysis, and knowledge acquisition. It further provides students with the vocabulary of a specialised discourse to satisfy their communicative needs and demands as final users. Such a vocabulary should be recognised and processed with the purpose of enhancing communication. The identification of terms and their codification into conceptual systems appears central to effectively employ and understand the language. As Fazio (2012: 14) highlights, “the relation between epistemology and specialized discourse appears strict in the sense that a specialist’s use of the language is not occasional but rather reflects an intense meta-linguistic activity implying a highly accurate choice of terms. This is the first implicit condition for achieving communication objectives […] mediating between the result obtained and the resources used”. Through controlled language use, students can practise the language they need, consolidating their linguistic skills while working on their specialist knowledge through reading, writing, speaking and study skills – including those required for undertaking some initial research. Specifically, they can practise on: developing strategies to improve their ability to comprehend specialised texts, developing strategies to produce more coherent writing, adopting various approaches for dealing with new and unknown vocabulary, exploring research techniques and resources, promoting learner social autonomy. Indeed, autonomy is the necessary condition for effective learning, since it enhances students’ capacity for critical thinking and responsibility (Benson 2001). In a society where lifelong learning is more and more valued, students should be equipped with strategies to learn how to learn. However, since learning is a personal process, it can only be efficient if learners want to learn; the recognition of responsibility for their learning is thus considered a first step towards autonomy (Little 2000).
2020
978-8-8321-6708-5
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11367/88851
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