THE METHOD OF COORDINATES IN TEACHING ESP

Abstract

. The article introduces a new approach to English language teaching and learning at media and journalism departments. It is called “the method of coordinates” and its purpose is to teach reading media, looking for author‟s intention and writing mass media texts. The method regards a mass media text as a multidimensional structure possessing such coordinates as protagonist, place, time, subject, author‟s intention, audience targeting, relevant external links, irrelevant external links, etc. Here a step-by-step analysis is described how to determine those in the text and thus observe the composition of the text. Further, the collected data are used to develop own writings in media. As an example, the report “Dalia Stasevska joins BBC Symphony Orchestra as principal guest conductor” from The Guardian (25.01.2019, by Imogen Tilden) is chosen. The novelty of the approach is in a particular combination of several steps while reading and analysing the content of a newspaper article. The method can be used in ESP classes at media and journalism departments while teaching students to read news articles and to analyse them semantically, pragmatically and structurally. It contributes to the development of reading skills and understanding author‟s intention as one of the most difficult tasks with the learners of English as a Second Language and prepares students to create personal writings in media.