Innovations of Testing English for Specific Purposes to Students of other Majors Online during the COVID-19 Pandemic at Mila University Centre, Algeria

This article examines a very thorny issue of testing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) through the barcode correction system to evaluate the usefulness of distance education. The system was used for the first time as a type of assessment which focuses on enriching student’s minimum vocabulary in a variety of English for specific contexts. Henceforth, the barcode correction system is applied in this study on different types of ESP exercises, and they are corrected as they are taught, explained, and consolidated in distance education. To determine online teaching efficiency, the barcode system is used to correct student’s papers in a total correction time based on single time 0.45/paper, calculate the rate of mistakes, and diagnose problems of correct answers, and missing marks. The results indicate that there is a high correlation between mistakes and ESP exercises calculated by the correction of barcode reading.


INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the world has experienced a drastic change in all walks of life due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the Algerian authorities called for total confinement after the announcement of confirmed cases in different Algerian cities. This precautionary measure was applied in all sectors; however, minimum service was guaranteed to contain the disease. In the sector of higher education, the Ministry of Higher Education launched distance learning via learning platforms like Moodle and Google Meet to save the rest of the academic year. Distance learning was challenging for both teachers and learners since the university was unprepared for this wholly new situation in terms of training (for teachers and learners), materials, and the shift in teaching techniques and methods. The teaching of English to students of other majors was based primarily on a genre-based approach of teaching English as Foreign Language (EFL). Likewise, this approach is based on analyzing typologies of texts in different fields. The aim behind the genrebased approach is to increase knowledge of ESP to obtain minimum competence in grammar, morphology, vocabulary, and syntax. The teaching of text typologies relying on platforms is problematic because it is not appropriate for the explanation, discussion, evaluation, and consolidation of such types of texts.
The Ministry of Higher Education emphasized the use of 'Moodle' to upload lectures, tasks, and even tests for students. However, Algerian universities adopted online teaching to cover primary subjects via Google Meet, while teachers uploaded lectures of all the other subjects on the 'Moodle' platform. It is not sufficient for beginners to submit different types of texts without any explanation. Teachers in this case improvised and sent students 'YouTube' or 'Facebook' page links with extra files to explain the notions and contextualize vocabulary with simplified English.

Moodle Platform
The same steps are generally kept in online classes, and it can be used sometimes at the beginning of the lecture instead of the warm up phase to increase interactivity and raise students' awareness of the important sections of the lecture. The teacher uploads the lecture on the 'Moodle' platform as the first phase in online teaching. Teachers of ESP in the faculties of Economics, and Science and Technology uploaded five lectures in each semester for every level in the bachelor and master's degrees. Teachers are obliged to upload a lecture every 15 days, and over a period of three months. If the lecture has annexes, the teacher should provide them in the same week, and inform the students about them on social networking. On the preceding week, the students expect other kinds of joint files on Moodle. Since classes are online, teachers support the texts with videos, PowerPoint presentations, and links in each appropriate section on the platform. These additional data are added to substitute the missing part in teaching (face-to-face) and pave the way for discussions in Google Meet classes.
Here, teachers add links, videos, and links to web pages or websites which are related directly to the content of the text in each lecture. They are considered as additional materials which are designed specifically to explain difficult words or vocabulary or define the text and summarize its main rhetorical functions with visual-verbal demonstrations. These teaching materials are used to explain, give examples, and provide additional information for the students. They are generally in simplified English and directed to lay people. Some teachers upload their own PowerPoint presentations, as they adjust the content to meet the needs of the students and achieve the required objectives of the texts or lectures. All these additional materials belong to the presentation phase and teachers responsible for the subject emphasize their use.
The second week is for consolidating students' knowledge with tasks and activities. The activities reflect the link between theory and practice in the texts. The consolidation of the texts is divided into two types: grammatical exercises and language quizzes to test the student's knowledge of grammatical correctness, discourse markers and cohesive devices, adjectives, and adverbs; and the second type of consolidation is used to test language production through composition and writing. Hence, students are engaged in two main activities, mainly paraphrasing and summarising. This is a type of synthesizing activity where students build new knowledge based on previous knowledge or background knowledge. Luoma (2004) categorized these types of processes as bottom-up and top-down processes. In the top-down process, learners deal with the analysis of text features from general to specific (essays, paragraphs, and sentences). However, the bottom-up process builds up new knowledge from previous knowledge through composition and writing. These techniques embody analysis and synthesis, as the former refers to breaking language down into parts, and the latter refers to reconstructing new knowledge from the parts found in analysis.
The whole semester is about three months in total, and every 15 days, teachers upload lectures on the platform together with links to relevant teaching materials like websites, videos, and PowerPoint presentations. The additional files are uploaded in the 'Moodle' platform in the first week, and in the second week, at least two evaluation tasks are uploaded to consolidate learning. Most ESP teachers at Mila University Centre are subject specialists and not EFL teachers. The faculties selected teachers with advanced English proficiency skills, or teachers who studied abroad to give courses to students in their specific fields. However, EFL specialists monitored ESP teachers to guide the learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following table summarizes the number of lectures uploaded online. The data in the table illustrates significant knowledge concerning both face-to-face and online teaching. The science majors are more oriented towards distance learning, and they are more prone to using videos and websites during learning. This characteristic is an application of the subject matter in the field of study. Additionally, it is noted that teachers in the Department of Computer Science interact positively in distance learning. They use almost all types of online options available in the platform even when they teach their students English for Science and Technology.
Hence, the new learning environment is applicable to mainly all science majors. The teachers find it appropriate to apply different techniques and methods and vary their means of education to contextualize learning. For ESP learners, the context determines the extent to which options and utilities in the platform are used. The organization and characterization of information in ESP discourse involve the identification of steps in academic writing. Academic texts are generally organized coherently like establishing background knowledge, discussing theories and concepts, giving examples, and then establishing arguments or counterarguments (Bhatia, 2002).

Google Meet sessions
The teaching of ESP has received little attention during COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, ESP, Methodology, and Information Technology were classified as secondary class subjects. The administration of the University Centre of Mila obliged teachers to schedule online sessions for all secondary class subjects to wrap up lessons and prepare for examinations. Teachers were expected to answer students' questions, explain difficult concepts, and give instructions to students about the examination. In fact, students and teachers interacted on the Moodle platform through the chat option or on Facebook. The chat option on Moodle is rarely used among students, and they preferred to interact directly with teachers on Facebook. The chat option was added for questions and enquiries about tasks and evaluation activities from both teachers and learners in continuous assessments.
There are plenty of technical problems in online teaching in third world countries as it requires a lot of practice. Researchers now, in online teaching, are tackling more complicated and developed hitech means including assimilation of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to increase the adaptation of real-life learning environments (Bonner & Reinders, 2018). It is also used in cloud computing technologies to improve interaction between students and teachers at all levels (Kakoulli-Constantinou, 2018) and use of computer games which are designed to increase ESP knowledge of some specific areas like shipping, surfing, medicine, and biology. Recently, the teaching of ESP was applied in different social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, since they attract a lot of users around the world (Plutino, 2017;Rosell-Aguilar, 2018). The teaching of ESP and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) using hi-tech devices requires proficiency in both English and computer skills to achieve the task appropriately.

Barcode Technology:
A barcode is a code in the form of a series of lines and each of the thick lines represents a specific character. This barcode is usually placed in the label then affixed to the material (a product, an identity card, or a specific document), or printed directly on that material to identify it (Irawan & Parasetya, 2022). The information contained in this technology is composed of a series of numbers, model numbers, production code, or identification number; whereby the computer can easily identify them. To read these codes humans and computers translate them into recognized characters, and the user must use a tool called a barcode scanner, or any smart phone application through their camera.

Barcode uses in education
The use of barcode reading is not new in educational contexts. In fact, the use of Quick Response (QR) or barcodes in education facilitates the learning process. QR can connect mobile devices and computer technology with written texts (De Pietro & Frontera, 2012). Barcodes are squares that can carry information, texts, images, and even videos. This means that barcodes have the possibility to enrich the process of paper-based learning, and it can also be used in fieldwork, or for outdoor activities to support learning with materials and content (Law & So, 2010). Other researchers investigated different uses of barcodes in a learner-generated context to generate different content and demonstrate its effects on paper-based tasks (Mikulski, 2011). Depending on the nature and uses of barcodes, we can say it fits many purposes in the teaching of ESP contexts. Lee et al., (2011) incorporated QR and mobile phones into field trips, which were designed specifically for biology students, to obtain different information like texts and images about different elements in nature. Even in paper-based tasks, additional information about the content of the material can be added ubiquitously in the form of links, website images, and even short videos. Such technology is used to save time and space. Teachers use it to avoid the details and examples in a given subject matter and develop the content from different perspectives. It is also very useful in communicative tasks due to its information, application, and functionality.

Barcodes text labeling
The process of the system is that students replace their identities by using barcodes or print an identification number on the title of the text (whether it is a task or an examination).Then, assign barcode automatic correction and evaluate the text of the student. In the process of outlining the value of the task, the teacher or lecturer scans the barcodes of students, and the program automatically searches for students' database. At the end and after finding student data, the teacher enters grades for the students' texts.

Student Attendance
Many studies were conducted to develop the process by which teachers take student absences automatically. As an example, Gomez et al., (2017) used barcode technology to evaluate the usefulness of taking absences through a system known as system development life cycle (SDLC). It allowed the dean and other staff members to monitor absences based on the relation between the teachers load report, attendance monitoring log, and a summary of the attendance report. The tracking system of barcode reading was mainly implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic social distancing measure, and to lessen human contact. Elaskari et al., (2021) integrated the barcode tracking system with a university database called,"Edugate." The latter is a database in which information about students is entered manually to help track the students' profile (personal information, area of study, and marks). The aim is to make it easy to track the students' attendance without any bodily interaction by focusing on the student's personal information.

Testing criterion
The process of evaluating ESP students at Mila University Centre was achieved based on two different tasks, namely continuous assessment activities and final exams.

The continuous assessment activities
The evaluation in continuous assessment is made on the Moodle platform with tasks and activities uploaded after the lectures. The purpose behind this evaluation is to consolidate students' knowledge and test the interaction and participation using the Moodle platform. Hence, most of the activities related to ESP are grammatical correctness, vocabulary building, and syntax. Douglas (2013) noted this when he referred to 'precision, context and interaction between specific purpose language, and specific purpose background knowledge' (p. 368). In fact, the background knowledge in this evaluation is related to what has already been taught, because every subject matter in ESP has a wide choice of subject specific words, phrases, and expressions. If teaching and testing objectives are different, this results in 'backwash' effect, and it may affect the outcome of learners negatively (Fulcher & Davidson, 2007). Thus, assessment in ESP is communicative in terms of subject specific language items (Douglas, 2000). Researchers in second language testing (Fulcher & Davidson, 2007;Luoma, 2004) considered the formative assessment of language for subject specific purposes, as it is used to build learners' knowledge based on real contexts taken from different areas.
Other types of activities, which are practiced specifically among ESP students are summarizing and paraphrasing. The teachers indulged the learners with memorizing strategies to distinguish between definitions, explanations, and examples for the application of some theories in subject specific domains, like Economics, Management, and Commerce. The teaching of ESP focuses mainly on clear rhetorical functions to maintain the communicative purposes of the texts. Therefore, the consolidation phase of teaching focuses on rhetorical functions and cohesive devices to strengthen ideas and notions which are used to negotiate the meaning in ESP discourse.

Final Exams evaluation
All ESP final exams are summative achievement tests which are scheduled at the end of each semester or at the end of the year to test the learners' overall general language ability. The testing criterion of the final exams seeks to evaluate language-knowledge and topic-knowledge. It is the assessment of the actual use of language. This kind of assessment can be implemented in speaking. The activities and tasks included are performance-based and are completely integrated with subject-specific content. The point is that performance-based assessment is built around a social learning environment that encourages learning, communication, achieving shared goals, and achieving feedback between the learners and the teacher.
Forty-nine (49) cohorts of levels took the examination of both Master and Bachelor degrees. Before the examination, the students received detailed instructions from their teachers about procedures of the examination and how to answer the questions. The instructions are highly recommended to avoid all types of intricacies, such as managing time, forgetting to write their names, or forgetting to answer any part in the examination. The following table summarizes the data about ESP exams: The ESP exams are divided into two parts. In the first part, students received the examination texts in their subject-specific fields a night before the examination. The students read the text and prepared themselves by analyzing the text and understanding its language features. In the examination, the students bring the text, and take the examination face to face at the university. The point behind this procedure is to save the allotted time (one hour) of the examination and give the students a chance to concentrate on the questions. In each amphitheatre, three teachers invigilate the examination, as two of them supervise it, and the third one works on providing the students with barcodes (QR) in their exam papers. The EAP and ESP exams are multiple-choice in format and students tick the right answers appropriately.

RESULTS
It is not very common among researchers and educators to use QR or barcodes in testing and evaluation. The evaluation system at Mila University Centre is based on a three-step barcodes decoding read system. First, the barcodes are printed and fixed in the students' exam papers during the examination. Second, a model answer is saved in the computer with correct answers of all ESP exams. The teachers made the exercises particularly suitable for ticking, so that the computer reads the data easily. In each barcode's label, there is a specific number which distinguishes between students in every department. The labels are scanned using a barcode scanner which deciphers students' answers according to the model answer saved in the computer. In this formula, single time refers to the time that the software takes to process the information in the computer, while setup time refers to the time for scanning the paper and decoding the answers. Statistically, the single time equals ≤ 0.45 milliseconds, and set up time equals ≤2 seconds, respectively. The total number of exam papers was 12125 across all departments, and the total time of correction was calculated as follows: = 12125(0.45 + 2) = 12125(2.45)

= 29706.25 Seconds
The total time for the correction of papers in seconds was 25884.25. To measure the time in minutes, we divided the total time by 3600 which is the total number of seconds in one hour.

=8.251
The total time calculated was eight (8) hours and forty one (41) minutes. Hence, the following graph summarizes the results of the total time for correcting papers in each department.

Figure 1: Barcode correction time in each department
The number of papers corrected in each department plays an important role in determining the amount of time required for barcode's correction of exam papers. The total amount of correction time was eight hours and forty one minutes, and we divided it in between single time and set up time. The formula of calculation is very simple, because the higher the number of students in the department, the longer the period the barcode scanner takes to correct the papers. Consequently, the department of Science and Technology recorded the longest period of barcodes scanning time of one hour and fifty one minutes, as well as the department of Commerce which recorded one hour and forty one minutes. The other departments recorded less time -the department of Economics with one hour and six minutes, the department of Management with one hour and eighteen minutes, and the department of Computer Science with one hour and ten minutes. The department of the French language recorded the lowest time of fifty seven minutes only. 0 2 ESP final exams revealed transparency and easiness for handling and correcting the papers. Students agreed that the contexts of the exercises are easy and functional, while answering correctly relies on comprehending parts of the text and understanding the smoothness of ideas and language. So, the students in EAP and ESP final exams employed skimming and scanning techniques to answer all the questions. At first, they skimmed the text at home to understand the general idea and supporting details. During the examination, students read the questions of the exercises and skimmed the text again quickly (make a quick selective reading) to locate important information, like notions and functions, and identify the meaning of words in specific contexts. To analyze the texts rhetorically and understand the meaning, students should locate different clues such as cohesive devices and discourse markers. These clues help students determine what academic writers want to say next, and how to say it using specific vocabulary, grammar, and text features as well.

ANALYSIS
The process of evaluation using barcodes in EAP and ESP exercises is easy and efficient. Teachers appreciated the operation because evaluation was easy, and many papers with different exercises were corrected in a very short period. Even the tasks can be handled easily for students, and they achieve different communicative purposes, that is, they can summarize the content of the lectures uploaded on Moodle. Therefore, there is no backwash or other unwanted variables like time management or tricky questions.
The texts of the exams were composed of three parts: an introduction, a body paragraph, and a conclusion. For example, the text in the examination of the department of Commerce was about the nature of commerce. At the beginning, the text defines commerce. In the body paragraphs, the text develops types of commerce which are wholesale and retail trade, the means of transportation of merchandise, and insurance of commercial activities. Therefore, the exercises vary from identifying the notions of place and time. Then, identifying the rhetorical functions employed in each part of the text. Finally, asking questions about specific vocabulary, grammar and syntax is also included.
Besides saving time and effort, barcodes defined boundaries in between online-tests and in-class tests. In online tests, the sharing of the exams online to students opens possible ways to cheat in these exams. Academic honesty is not a big deal for students; they must get good marks to pass the exams, and they cannot do it without dragging and dropping correct answers. It is possible for students to receive assistance or help whenever they need it, but it is unethical and dishonest when they copy information from other students or rely on other people to answer instead of them. In addition, some developing countries are still constrained to provide the appropriate means to take exams online. The slow speed of the Internet, Internet disruptions, and technical problems hinder the process of online evaluation. As a result, students complained all the time when they took online exams until some of them are repeated in classrooms, because of the technical problems in terms of accessing, receiving, and sending back exams.
Online teaching takes time and requires a lot of practice. Thanks to online teaching, both asynchronous and synchronous learning is activated. Students are kept busy sometimes waiting for the timing of lectures to be announced, and some other times for lectures and tasks to be uploaded on the platform. However, online exams have changed the criterion of examinations, and while it is possible it means procedures are in constant change. Hence, barcodes seem to be the appropriate solution to avoid technical problems, keep the originality of exams, and test the students' proficiency.
Before the examination students received extensive instruction about the procedures of the examination, and how to answer the questions. Most of the instructions focused on demonstrating the difference between the automatic correction process of the computer and how to answer. The computer is a machine, and it does not think, reflect, analyze or blink an eye when it corrects the papers. Therefore, respecting the instruction is very necessary to accomplish the examination successfully. However, the problematic issue faced in this examination is that some students did not attend Google Meet lectures, and they were not aware of the instructions of the examination. The instructions given to students focused mainly on writing ticks correctly and answering the questions appropriately. However, some students did not use the tick correctly and did not answer the questions appropriately. In this case, the barcode scanner did not read the answers appropriately, and they were considered as wrong or cancelled answers. The teachers deliberated on the complaints of the students and corrected the papers manually. The following table summarizes the results of the complaints of students in every department:

Table 3: Complaints of students in ESP examinations
The students of computer science committed fewer mistakes than all other students in the other departments. They were mostly aware of these procedures with high-tech devices, and they recorded the lowest number of mistakes (12) committed when answering questions in the examination. High rates are recorded in the other majors, specifically in the departments of Economics (44), Commerce (48) and Management (35). So, instructional discourse for students is beneficial for guidance, as it gives an idea about the regulations of the examination.
In order to calculate the accuracy of barcode scanner correction of exam papers, we need to calculate first the rate of problems which surfaced in every department. Hence, the following formula calculates the rate of problems: Consequently, the exact rate of the barcode scanner equals the rate of the total number of mistakes subtracted from the rate of the barcode scanner rate: 1.62-1.18 =0.44.
The following graph illustrates the rate of mistakes: The statistical measures indicated that the accuracy rate is 0.44, and the scanner is expected to achieve a value as high as (+1) when accuracy is strong and (-1) when it is weak. To sum up, the difference between the rate of the barcode scanner equals the difference in between (-1) and (+1) in 0.44, which is smaller (>) than 0.56.

DISCUSSION
In regard to the questions on the ESP exams, students complained verbally about the similarity of options to select from in the answers. In the distinction between the rhetorical functions of defining and identifying, students found it difficult to answer correctly and identify them. Other students complained about the meaning of some difficult scientific words, and the possible combinations of collocations in scientific and academic texts. Such exercises in ESP and EAP require familiarity of possible combinations for words, phrases, and expressions. Meanwhile, students need schema knowledge or topic familiarity to understand the meaning of the words and its usage in different contexts. The following exercise is an excerpt from the examination of the department of Science and Technology:

Task One
Replace the word written in bold by word or expression in the list (A, B, C, or D) This exercise requires background information about the context and uses of words. The definitions are provided, and the intended words are written in bold. The words belong to different subjects in ESP including bacteria, the general practitioner, supported, and guidance. The context of these words determines the extent to which language functions are used. Cognitive strategies like guessing, evaluating, finding clues and keywords are important to obtain the exact meaning. The testing is based on both language proficiency as in the words 'guidance' and 'supported', and schema knowledge as in the words 'general practitioner' and 'bacteria'. In addition, some other areas are difficult for being subject specific with cognitive and strategic implications. The following exercise is an excerpt from the examination of the Department of Management:

Task Two
Match a word from the column A with its synonym from column B 1-To catalogue A-to spot 2-To annotate b-to organize alphabetically or otherwise 3-To flag C-To add comments to a document 4-To cite D-To mark for someone's attention 5-To network E-a disadvantage 6-A downside F-to quote or reference another work 7-To download G-to make contact socially or professionally 8-To notice H-to get from the internet The exercise in the examination of the Department of Management was designed specifically to test students' proficiency in the domain of management, with much emphasis on managerial and administrative words and phrases. Students use the words to express the exact meaning, and other words cannot replace them. All the students managed to find correct definitions of the words: to download, to cite, and to notice. However, some students complained about the difficulty of other words like: to annotate, to flag, and to catalogue, as they could not identify the correct answers. Teachers believed that lack of background knowledge is due to the COVID-19 pandemic as they tended to focus on face-to-face teaching in comparison to online teaching, where there is less interaction like explanations, examples, and reading comprehension tasks.
At the level of the department, the administration found difficulties when importing the marks from the software responsible for correcting the exam papers to the 'Progres' software responsible for calculating the total averages of students. During the importation of marks, the department divided the cohorts of levels into groups as they study the other subjects, because the software 'Progres' imports students' marks in groups. Henceforth, the administrators copied the marks first into groups using Excel files, and then the Excel files were imported again into the 'Progres' software. The teachers displayed the marks for the students and gave them a period of three days to check the marks (of all subjects) and make a complaint if they found any issues. The teachers then deliberated again and corrected the missing marks manually until they fixed all the problems.

CONCLUSION
The teaching of English to students of other languages is basically related to subject-specific information because every area has different communicative purposes which are identified within the same discourse community. Developing learners' background knowledge of the field is a basic element in teaching ESP, which involves specific proficiency of the target language. In the 21 st century, the teaching of ESP has shifted to high-tech devices to assimilate real-life situations such as: augmented reality, virtual reality, video games, and a variety of other multimedia techniques. Modern-day society has evolved the means and techniques through which knowledge is exposed and negotiated communicatively.
The teaching of ESP at Mila University Centre has experienced a drastic change specifically after the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. All institutions adapted online teaching because it is cheap and cost-effective. However, teachers considered online teaching and learning as a double-edged sword or as they described it 'a curse and bless at the same time'. It is true that online teaching has revolutionized the teaching process as it has become easy, efficient, and cost-effective. There is no need for transportation, fancy classes or big towers and building. With just a simple click, the lecture starts, while students can follow lectures through uploaded handouts, and receive task sheets. Even the teaching of secondary subjects like English, learning methodology, and information technology has become practical. In this context, various multimedia techniques were added to meet the needs of courses and substitute for the absence of teachers.
At Mila University Centre, an online platform was used to accomplish the task of delivering EAP and ESP courses to students. The Moodle platform was used mainly to upload lectures, tasks, and activities for students throughout the year. In addition to uploading lectures for students, teachers can upload other files, like videos, audio files, PowerPoint presentations, and web links. These features are very effective in the teaching of EAP and ESP courses, because they enhance learners' background knowledge in different situations. The teachers relied on genre-approaches to analyze features of the texts, such as identifying the notions and rhetorical functions, cohesive devices, vocabulary, and lexicon. In these secondary subjects, online-classes took place only at the end of the semester, where teachers scheduled only two lessons to explain difficult concepts, answer questions, and give instructions for the examination.
The evaluation of EAP and ESP lectures took place at the university to avoid the effects of variables such as slow-speed Internet, technical problems, and dishonest practices by students. Meanwhile, the evaluation was based on sending texts to students before the exam and answering questions about the texts in the exam. Barcodes were used to correct exam papers and evaluate the answers automatically. Accordingly, the questions were in the form of multiple choice quizzes, and students were required to tick the right answers. However, students bad handwriting and carelessness resulted in the misreading of data by the computer, and for a successful outcome hand writing should be clear and direct to avoid any issues.
Despite the issues, we can conclude that the evaluation of students' exam papers was a very successful operation, and there is potential for Google form exams, but taken in-class to ensure the authenticity of the examination.