Prof. Nadežda Stojković

Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš, Serbia. Teaches Contemporary English, English language for Specific and Academic Purposes. Initiator and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes, indexed in WoS, Scopus, Scimago, CNKI. Initiator and organizer of international ESP conferences University of Niš, Serbia (4th and 5th). Advisory editor for Cambridge Scholars Publishing. External project reviewer for Khalifa University, UAE. Author of numerous articles and books.

Title: Towards Holistic Education – Use of Socratic Method in Teaching Academic and English for Specific Purposes

Present day methodology of teaching Academic English (AE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is focused on transfer of linguistic and communicative skills that constitute those discourses. This focus can be perceived as a challenging, disputable side of these approaches, ESP sometimes being referred to as a ’restricted language’ in the sense of a restricted psychological and social profile since it excludes topics outside the needed professional ones and reducing language from its ontological nature to a mere tool of only factual exchange. Aware of these notable downsides, the use of Socratic method is advocated here, as a way that at once satisfies the premises of both AE and ESP, yet by far surpasses their limitations. The use of Socratic method is proposed here as one way of resolving the noted dichotomy between ’restricted’ and true, holistic education. This method of instruction enhances students’ disciplinary genre communicative skills, the very domain knowledge, and higher order thinking, transversal skills, all directly relevant for their designated professional environment. Socratic method allows for an overall mental and psychological development, strengthening students’ self-awareness and self-confidence, better use of mental and cognitive skills that bring language instruction close to its core nature – the means of holistic expression of self and the entirety of environment.