Non-specialist English Studies in Higher Education

Abstract

It is a well known fact that the division into arts or science takes place early in a British secondary school career, and that despite educational reports recommending a change any intermingling of disciplines often faces the barrier of faculty divisions in the orthodox British university. The student of science or technology in a British university will seldom continue any formal education in language ; unlike his American counterpart he will receive no 'freshman English' programme, and it is tacitly assumed that the prestigious standards of the British secondary school make such American oddities as 'Communication Skills' rather quaint evidence of inferior standards. Despite valiant efforts by our newer universities the short and specialized degree courses in British universities continue to be judged by specialist subject-centred criteria, and it is assumed that any aptitudes or abilities which may be desirable but lie outside the strictly defined academic limits of a subject will have been remembered from past schooling and nurtured informally, or acquired by 'contagion' with students following other disciplines. The quality of graduates from America's Massachusetts Institute of Technology may be admired and it will be noted that the students there seem to work hard, since a quarter of their undergraduate time is spent on rigorously examined courses in the humanities and social sciences; but comparison with our own university courses in science and technology will seldom be allowed, since we are supposed to be able to rely on our unique sixth form organisation, and our remarkable ability to cram into three years what other nations take four or five over. Even the convincing evidence produced by the Dainton and Swam Reports1 that as a commercial and industrial nation we have far less need of specialists than of generalists has produced little action except some murmuring of agreement on the general thesis, provided some other university takes the action. Subjects exercise a mesmeric influence lulled by the comfortable creed of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, although even the British Association is now asking whether science should be neutral2.There is certainly no lack of awareness on the part of scientists and technologists of the value, for instance, of language skills for a career in industry; ironically, scientists are often more aware of the problems of effective spoken and written communication than English specialists who may be inclined to be more concerned with specialist periods and obscure texts. Narrowness and subject-blinkers are not confined to our faculties of science and engineering. This is no place to re-open the arid two cultures debate, which is surely wrung completely dry by now; but those of us who are concerned with the teaching

Optimization of English Online Teaching Scheme Based on Cloud Platform Technology

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