The use of semiotic approach as an intervention in English for Specific Purposes classroom / Noor Baiduri Abd Halim, Marini Ahmad@Mahusin and Ida Haryani Ideris

Teaching and learning in the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) field has witnessed tremendous approaches being used by practitioners. The use of semiotic approach enables practitioners to explore different techniques in their teaching, and at the same time, adds more creativity in their style of teaching. In this action research, the semiotic approach represented by the use of a commercial video plays the role as an intervention in an ESP class to teach a lesson from the course syllabus. The ESP class consisted of 18 diploma engineering university students who were taking the English for Effective Communication course. The rationale of this study is to investigate the impact of the semiotic approach in delivering the lesson. Observation and questionnaire techniques were used in this study. The observation was conducted to understand the needs of the students in completing the classroom task. An adapted Likert Scale was administered to all respondents and analyzed quantitatively using SPSS.17 and descriptive statistics were performed. Multiple Linear Regression conducted shows that the content and teaching method are the bigger predictor to the knowledge outcomes than the instructor capability. In sum, the appeal of semiotic approach is proven to be very relevant to students of current generation who have high exposure to technology and digitization.