A corpus-based approach on the design and implementation of a lexical syllabus for electrical and electronics engineering students

In recent years, there have been various studies on the corpus-based approach in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) since the corpus-based approach provides the field with authentic and reliable sources. These studies aim to meet the needs for the development of ESP materials for both ESP practitioners and learners. In the current study, the aim was to design an effective corpus-based lexical syllabus based on authentic data which were gathered through materials such as textbooks, lecture notes and online resources at the Engineering Faculty, at the department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering (EEE) at Nigde University, where the majors are in English. Then, the collected data were converted into machine readable form to be analysed by means of AntConc, AntWordfinder and RANGE programmes. With the data obtained through a corpus based approach, a lexical syllabus was designed. After that, both the lectures and students at the department of EEE were interviewed. Then, a questionnaire survey was conducted with the students and the results were analyzed in order to find out their perceptions related to their English language needs. A pre-test was conducted with 94 students at the department in order to see the students' current levels of English. Then, the students were divided into two groups, one of which was the experimental group and the other of which was the control group. The conventional General English syllabus, which is purely based on four skills, was applied in the former, whereas the lexical syllabus for students was applied in the latter in order to see to what extent the students could improve their vocabulary capacity in terms of their specialty subject. At the end of the 12-week treatment for the experimental group, a post test was conducted to see the differences between two groups. The results indicated a significant difference favouring the experimental group. The results of the study indicate that the students at department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) at Nigde University are eager to improve their technical vocabulary capacity. Moreover, the majority of the students are of the opinion that both the materials and the content of the course should be improved in terms of the lexical items it contains. Keywords: Corpus-based approach, ESP, needs analysis, lexical syllabus