professional communication

This study investigated the implementation of a gamified English for Specific Purposes (ESP) speaking instructional framework using spinning wheel media among nursing students. A qualitative case study approach was conducted involving 25 nursing students at STIKES Bina Usada Bali. Data were gathered over five instructional sessions through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, followed by thematic analysis. The analysis revealed five themes: students’ engagement, speaking anxiety, speaking confidence, the relevance of nursing-based communication tasks, and classroom participation. The findings suggested that students perceived the randomized speaking prompts as engaging and considered nursing-related scenarios relevant to their prospective professional communication needs. Some participants further described feeling more comfortable and confident through repeated opportunities to practice speaking. Drawing on the classroom implementation, the study identified six related instructional components: context-based nursing tasks, randomized prompts, individual speaking performance, peer interaction, constructive feedback, and repeated practice. This study offers practical insights into the integration of gamification in ESP speaking instruction for nursing students. Nevertheless, the findings represent students’ experiences and perceptions; they do not demonstrate a causal improvement in speaking proficiency or establish the formal validity of the framework. Future research should investigate the framework in diverse educational contexts and explore its association with objectively assessed speaking outcomes.

Professional communication is an important learning outcome in higher education, yet different active learning pedagogies may provide different communicative affordances for its development and enactment. This study comparatively examined how four active learning pedagogies-group discussion, role play, case study analysis, and student-led seminars-were associated with professional communication across five dimensions: clarity and precision, logical structuring, adaptability and tone, active listening, and persuasive expression. Using a mixed-methods, within-subject repeated-measures design, data were collected from 72 postgraduate management students across two cohorts. All participants experienced the four pedagogies through a Latin Square rotation. Data were drawn from pre-post self-reports, instructor-rated session-level communication performance, and qualitative reflections. Findings were examined across three analytical levels. At the aggregate level, pre-post results indicated significant gains in students’ self-perceived communication competence across both cohorts. These findings indicate perceived development rather than objective gains in demonstrated competence. At the session level, observed communication performance varied across pedagogical conditions, with group discussion and role play associated with higher performance scores than case study analysis and student-led seminars. At the dimension level, qualitative findings revealed distinct pedagogy-dimension linkages. Group discussion was associated with clarity, logical structuring, active listening, and persuasive expression, whereas role play was particularly associated with adaptability and contextual responsiveness. The findings suggest that active learning pedagogies should not be treated as interchangeable approaches to communication development. Instead, their communicative affordances may be considered in relation to specific instructional objectives and desired dimensions of professional communication. The study contributes a differentiated account of how pedagogical structures shape opportunities for communication enactment and provides an evidence-informed basis for aligning active learning design with professional communication objectives in higher education.

The article analyses the cognitive and pragmatic functions of anthropomorphic metaphor in contemporary English-language discourse relating to project management and innovative information technologies. Particular attention is devoted to the conceptual mechanisms through which human characteristics, physiological states, cognitive processes and social relationships are projected onto abstract technological phenomena and corporate management practices. The study investigates the role of anthropomorphic metaphor in the formation of specialised terminology, the conceptualisation of complex digital processes and the facilitation of professional communication within multicultural corporate environments. Drawing upon the cognitive theory of metaphor, the research employs corpus-based analysis using Corpus Query Language (CQL) to identify, extract and classify metaphorical expressions occurring in technical documentation and professional project management communications. The analysis examines representative terminological units, including parent/child process, orphan file, zombie process, dead code, AI hallucinations, handshake, project health check and post-mortem, with particular emphasis on their underlying source domains and communicative implications. The findings reveal systematic patterns of metaphorical conceptualisation across two principal areas: innovative IT technologies and corporate project management. Technological processes are frequently represented through metaphors associated with human mortality, vitality and cognitive activity, whereas managerial practices draw extensively upon models of physical health, social interaction and interpersonal relationships. Three principal pragmatic functions of anthropomorphic metaphors are identified: cognitive-heuristic, communicativemanagerial and emotional-psychological. These functions contribute to the interpretation of complex technical phenomena, the establishment of shared professional terminology and the conceptual framing of organisational processes. The research further identifies the relevance of anthropomorphic terminology to intercultural professional communication, particularly in environments where English functions as a lingua franca. It is established that understanding the conceptual foundations of such expressions represents an important component of specialised linguistic competence among future engineers and IT professionals. The findings provide a theoretical and methodological basis for incorporating anthropomorphic terminology into English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction at technical universities, thereby supporting the development of professional communicative competence and intercultural adaptability in international technological and corporate contexts. Keywords: anthropomorphic metaphor, cognitive linguistics, IT discourse, project management, English for Specific Purposes.

Professional speech culture is an essential component of teacher preparation, yet university courses in this area often emphasize normative linguistic knowledge without sufficiently integrating its application to authentic pedagogical communication. This study aimed to preliminarily adapt and evaluate the Teacher's Speech Culture course for pre-service Kazakh language teachers by strengthening the integration of normative-linguistic, communicative-pragmatic, discursive, and interactive components of professional speech competence. A single-group pre-test–post-test design was used. Initially, 180 students were recruited from two higher education institutions in southern Kazakhstan; 156 completed all stages and were included in the final analysis. The adapted course combined theoretical instruction with professionally oriented communicative situations, independent construction of professional utterances, interactive tasks, and reflective analysis of speech behaviour. Professional speech competence was assessed before and after the course using diagnostic and performance-based measures. The assessment demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.86). Data were examined using pre-test -post-test comparisons and path analysis. Overall professional speech competence increased from M = 7.84 (SD = 1.62) to M = 9.72 (SD = 1.48), t (155) = 11.46, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.92. Significant improvements were also observed across the normative-linguistic, communicative-pragmatic, discursive, and interactive components. Path analysis indicated that the ability to analyse professional communicative situations had the strongest direct association with professional speech competence. Professional speech competence was also positively associated with speech self-control and flexibility of professional speech behaviour. The findings provide preliminary empirical support for a practice-oriented adaptation of the Teacher's Speech Culture course that connects knowledge of language norms with contextual analysis, independent speech production, and regulation of professional communication. Given the absence of a separate control group, the observed changes should be interpreted as pre-test–post-test differences associated with course participation rather than evidence of a causal intervention effect. Further controlled studies involving broader samples are required to evaluate the effectiveness and generalizability of the adapted course.