Motivation of esp student to learn foreign language Rashidova Jasmina Samarkand Institute of foreign languages

LMD System and ESP in Uzbekistan, Samarkand

Uzbekistan is situated in Central Asia, concerned with ‘Globalization’ as any other country. For that reason, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research tried to propose adequate programs and systems which will serve this frankness to the external world.

The educational reform at the level of higher education (i.e.: university level) is predetermined to make the educational system and scientific research go hand in hand with the international ones. Consequently, this reform is an
illustration of how the authorities try to apply the systems used in most developed countries to Uzbekistan.
The realization of the LMD system in Uzbekistan is elaborated as a step towards globalization because this Anglo-Saxon program has confirmed its success and it has been adopted by most countries in the world. Most of the involved partners (where students have been associated in some cases) did their best to make this enterprise succeed just for the cause of encouraging the future well-being of the Uzbekistan’s university. This would allow sizable changes to occur within the teaching cooperation first and within the universities later in a decade time.
The LMD system is made up of the license with 6 semesters (three years of study with the equivalence of Bachelors’ Degree), and a Masters’ Degree with two years (4 semesters) and the Doctorate with three years of research work (6 semesters) at the end of which the student has to conform a dissertation. The system is based on the so-called “Fundamental units” which the students should collect by the end of each semester. Moreover, there is a new element which is the system of “Credits” which means that if students do not get the needed credits, they may pass to the next semester with modules in-debt.
The LMD system was implemented in Uzbekistan in 2011 but not all universities adopted it at once. It spread out progressively in Tashkent, Fergana and Bukhara, then in Samarkand at the Department of English in the academic year (2012-2013).
The reasoning behind changing the system in our educational schedule, at the high level, is to create an overall innovation within the Uzbekistan’s universities and to allow them follow the stream of real foundations adequate with the evolution of not only scientific research and educational techniques, but the world as well.
This new reform tries to emphasis on the obtaining of different foreign languages since Uzbek is the national language and Russian and English are considered as foreign languages. All subjects are taught in Uzbek and Russian in most universities, with English included in the curriculum as an obligatory subject. The purpose is to increase the students’ proficiency in different settings as well as to prepare them for successful communication in their future profession and career.
The importance of English as an international language continues to develop as more and more people are wanting or being required to learn English, that is why the Uzbekistan’s government is introducing mass education programs with English as an important foreign language to acquire. Actually, in the new world order, discourse is grounded on one and only approval -Globalization.
All these demands and requirements have resulted in the extension of one particular aspect of English Language Teaching namely the teaching of ESP, making the teaching-learning of English meaningful in the university context. Substance, teaching materials and methodology are determined by the interests, the social context and the previous knowledge of the learners. In this way, the language is not the object of learning, but the result, the product of common interaction between the learner and the outside world, which in the case of English is a really wide world full of challenges and unexpected demands and constraints.
In Uzbekistan, the teaching of ESP has started within a limited number of universities and higher institutions such as Chemistry, History, Biology and other Faculties, where the LMD system first emerged in Samarkand. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning the fact that an attempt to teach ESP or rather EST at secondary specialized education level was made during the late 80s and early 90s. The monitoring of English, under the instructions of the Ministry of Education at that time, thought it necessary to design teaching material specific to the sciences, technology and management directions. Appropriate syllabi and textbooks were written for each direction by the best specialists and some teachers. The investigation lasted a few years with a great deal of success, but it regularly encountered some difficulties for its generalization through the country. Among them:
-The lack of negotiation between the ‘content’ teacher and the ‘language’ teacher.
-The textbook was not made available in all technical or specialized schools and colleges (middle school).
-Students did not master the basis of English (General English).
-Lack of specific preparation for the language teacher teaching scientific, technical or management and medicine directions.
-Lack of motivation from the part of students who considered the subject of ‘English’ as a literary one that is, secondary as matched to other subjects.
-The endless displacement of teachers and pupils from and to ESP classes and General English ones.
The experience constantly refused and was finally neglected by the educational authorities. Only the General English textbooks remained valid and used by all directions.
However, if the teaching of ESP has well developed in the Europe, in Uzbekistan, things are continuously developing due to the recent increase in the number of institutions of higher education, on the one hand the number of students on the other. This growing number is, unfortunately, not fulfilled yet by any development in teaching programs in general, and those of English in particular. The modern situation regarding the teaching of this specialty at vocational faculties in the non-Arts institutions is characterized especially by a lack of human resources, training and sufficient teaching material. Besides, it is the administrators who decide the number of time distributed to the English module, and it is up to the teacher to set up the relevant program.
However, an attempt has been made by Ministry of Higher and specialized Education and Scientific Research to improve the ESP position in Uzbekistan. Number of ESP centers were set up in the country. Provide in country ESP courses for both teachers and post-graduate training research at Ph.D. level in Uzbekistan was great achievement. Develop a professional ESP advisory service for key high University and Institutions in Uzbekistan. Train pedagogic staff operating at local level. The three ESP centers had to train teachers in charge of giving ESP lectures in different Uzbekistan’s institutions. In 1999, the ESP center of Oran launched an ESP review ‘Newsletter’ to offer support to post-graduate students, to provide them with bibliography and to allow teachers trained in UK and the USA to operate a transfer of knowledge to the students. Despite the positive results, the ESP centers did not accept a legal position and continued to act under the supervision of the CITL (Centre for Intensive Teaching Language). Several attempts have been made to save the centers from this unsuccessful situation and get an official position, in useless. The Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education and Scientific Research has always reacted negatively. The consequence of this is the cancellation of two ESP centers, Tashkent and Samarkand. The center of Oran is still managing with a different goal that of dealing with post- graduation teaching programs (Benyelless, 2009)
However, despite the great importance of English for students’ future, these are not motivated due to the fact that there are no determined programs, and this remains a serious problem for teaching of ESP in Uzbekistan. These factors are important but they may be completely ineffective if the structure, the energy and the aim are not well established.