ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUM TASKS IN ESP COURSES: SPACE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF INTRALINGUISTIC MEDIATION SKILLS

The aim of the paper is to analyze the potential of particular blended learning tasks with regard to the development of students’ intralinguistic mediation skills in a foreign language. In accordance with the current trends in designing higher education language curricula, the paper deals with the issues of English Medium Instruction (EMI, as summarized e.g., by Macaro 2018 or Lasagabaster 2022) and draws on newly formulated categories of the updated Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Our primary perspective is represented by the category of mediation, which has significantly broadened its scope owing to the analyses carried out by North and Piccardo (2016) and now constitutes a very important part of the updated version of CEFR. Our focus is on the so-called intralinguistic mediation, i.e. mediation within the same language, deliberately implemented into the university curricula of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in order to establish conditions for subsequent EMI teaching. The empirical part presents a thorough description of an integrated blended learning assignment consisting of an online discussion forum in LMS Moodle and the follow-up classroom presentation task, in terms of the key theoretical constructs, namely mediation activities, and mediation strategies. Based on that, the paper presents the results of a small-scale empirical investigation carried out by means of a semi-structured questionnaire and aimed at identifying the students´ perceptions of key aspects of mediation implemented into the integrated ESP learning tasks. The research outcomes are interpreted in relation to our previous studies on the potential of ESP online discussion forums and the specifics of establishing the EMI teaching contexts. The main implication is that the concept of mediation seems to be highly meaningful for the successful integration of the most relevant learning and communication modes, i.e. written and spoken language interaction and production in both online and classroom learning environments.