Exploring Practices and Perceptions of Iranian ELT instructors and Subject teachers in teaching EAP Technical and Semi-technical vocabulary

Notwithstanding the challenge of teaching vocabulary for English Language teachers especially in ESP courses and inseparability of vocabulary for many teaching syllabus, a well-planned teaching and contextual teaching of vocabulary is of urgent need. Thus, this study is an attempt to explore similarities and differences between vocabulary teaching beliefs and practices of content teachers and ELT instructors. To this end, 18 ESP teachers (9 ELT instructors and 9 subject-matter teachers) male and female, aged between 20 to 40 ranging from MA to PhD holders, with different years of experiences in teaching ESP courses from different discipline (Electrical engineering, Medicine and psychology) participated in this study. The required data were collected through a vocabulary belief questionnaire, observation and interview along with an achievement test for ESP students before and after the course to check their vocabulary knowledge achievement. The collected data were qualitatively-quantitatively analyzed. Comparisons between the two groups of teachers revealed that they held different beliefs in terms of teaching vocabulary. The findings of the study also indicated that the two groups of teachers practiced their beliefs differently (e.g. translation by subject teachers and synonymy by ELT instructors). Students also significantly differed in terms of their vocabulary knowledge achievement test. The findings of the study provide implications for ESP teacher education in order to color current practices and beliefs of the two groups of teachers about vocabulary teaching and learning with a fresh paint.