Discourse-Based Approach to Practicing L2 Prosody in a Workplace Communication Course

Abstract

This chapter looks at the current communicative needs of a modern engineer engaged in professional intercultural communication. To describe professional context, the analysis of the present-day engineering discourse was conducted. It was found that spoken communication is gaining more momentum in engineering practice. Therefore, more focus in language teaching should be placed on prosody skills. Since L2 prosody practicing has long been beyond the scope of ESP curriculum, it is hypothesized that a tailor-made teaching solution is called for. The prosodic profile of an engineering specialist served as a reference point for selecting content to teach prosody. In a verifying experiment, post-teaching scores of 80 Russian engineering students were assessed. The study reveals a correlation between the implemented teaching practice and the raise of students' L2 prosody skills and the effectiveness of the suggested instructional treatment. The methods discussed have implications for other professional contexts and aspects of language use.