USING THINGLINK DIGITAL POSTERS IN TEACHING ESP TO BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS STUDENTS (A CASE STUDY OF BAUMAN MOSCOW STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY)

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USING THINGLINK DIGITAL POSTERS IN TEACHING ESP TO
BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS STUDENTS (A CASE STUDY OF
BAUMAN MOSCOW STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY)
K. Inozemtseva, G. Kirsanova, N. Troufanova, Y. Semenova
Bauman Moscow State Technical University (RUSSIAN FEDERATION)
Abstract
Among interactive visuals being used in the contemporary classroom digital posters are recognized as
indispensable teaching and learning tools that can help teachers to introduce a new topic, consolidate
group and individual learning and promote students’ comprehension. ThingLink is an interactive media
platform that empowers educators and learners to create digital posters by adding rich media content
(videos, texts, graphics, photos, sounds, data attachments, drawings, and more) to selected drawings
and photos. With the recent addition of 360-degree images and virtual reality, ThingLink has become
one of the most exciting tools in the educator's toolkit.
The current piece of research aims at exploring whether using ThingLink digital posters in English for
Specific Purposes (ESP) classroom has had any positive effect on ESP students’ acquisition of
English subject-specific terminology and comprehension of profession-oriented topics being taught in
English. Business and economics students from Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU)
(n=80) participated in a pedagogic experiment on comparing ESP students’ learning outcomes
obtained from ‘traditional’ ESP teaching based on standardized teaching materials (control group) and
visualized teacher’s topics presentation by means of ThingLink multimedia posters (experimental
group). The assessment of students’ outcomes was carried out by testing. The analysis of the tests
results showed that the experimental group exceeded the control group both in specific terminology
acquisition and subject content comprehension.
The obtained results initiated BMSTU ESP teachers collaborative work on development of ThingLink
digital posters customized for various specialisms and their integration in BMSTU business,
economics and engineering students’ ESP curricula.
Keywords: ThingLink digital posters, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), business and economics
students
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background and problem statement
Over the last decade in a competitive higher education sector in Russia there has been a massive shift
towards using digital technologies that was triggered by many factors. First, the university brand is
promoted effectively in digital channels that helps to attract students, professional staff and establish
partnerships in science and business. Second, modern students, ‘digital natives’, expect to be taught
at a pace that they have chosen and using digital methods that suit their preferences [4], [6]. It has
become clear that universities willing to stay alive in a competition for students, funding and global
recognition have to leverage new digital capabilities. However, there are difficulties to overcome.
In Russian ESP tertiary teaching context, the barriers to going digital are often caused by two factors.
First, not all university classrooms are properly equipped to support digital initiatives. Among the
existing learning platforms (Blackboard, Canvas or Moodle) only the latter is widely used in Russian
higher educational institutions. Getting the most out of Moodle, the platform that has made a good
showing in the tertiary educational settings, requires significant investment of ESP teachers’ time,
efforts and digital literacy that creates the second barrier. With digital uptake gathering pace at
engineering, economics and IT university faculties, ESP departments are generally left behind. Some
of ESP teachers are reluctant to develop new digital skills, others are biased against using digital
technologies in teaching process [8]. Despite being called for developing ESP e-teaching and
assessing students’ learning outcomes with Moodle, most ESP tertiary teachers at Russian
educational institutions are still unsure of how to leverage this teaching channel effectively and what
the appropriate assessment tools should be used in this format. As a result, Moodle often becomes a

repository for storing ESP supplementary materials without delivering anticipated benefit for the
students.
Whereas the classroom equipment for digital teaching and learning is being renewed at Russian
universities, the problem of ESP teachers’ low motivation to go digital is still acute. Clearly, the digital
agenda must be driven by university management that is expected to support development of ESP
teachers’ digital literacy by arranging optional or mandatory CPD courses and training sessions.
However, if ESP departments want to get ALL teachers on board, they will have to come up with new
motivational strategies or/and propose very simple digital solutions that are less time-consuming, easy
to integrate in ESP curricula and inspire teachers’ and students’ creativity [10]. Being enhanced with a
user-friendly, effective digital tool that can help to deliver profession-oriented content in English
through all available student mobiles (tablets, smartphones and other electronic gadgets), ESP
teachers will get a taste of diverse activities, appreciate students’ motivation growth and will get
accustomed to digital teaching.
1.2 Digital posters in education
One of the most promising interactive visuals being used in the contemporary classroom is a Digital
Poster, a multimedia teaching and learning tool that can help teachers of various disciplines to
introduce a new topic, consolidate students’ group, support individual learning and promote students’
comprehension. Digital Poster (DP) is a high-resolution light-emitting display (LED) or an Electronic
Control Module (ECM), that can visualize data, information, images, high definition video or provide
live video feed. DPs are not only updatable and eye-catching, but enable a teacher to organize and
display animated media to students’ audience quickly and easily.
Replacing traditional printed posters and flashcards, DPs are becoming cost-effective teaching tool
that can be controlled remotely to display lesson content for instant delivery. With a DP, a teacher can
scale a lesson content to an unlimited number of screens to reach students’ audience simultaneously
in multiple locations. Apart from being applied for teacher’s presentation, DPs have high potential in
assessment of various learners’ activities. Students can use DPs to provide evidence of their
understanding of an essential question based on curricular materials. DPs can also display the results
of individual or group students’ research to a classroom audience (Digital Poster Projects). These
projects can be submitted to scientific contests that is beneficial for developing students’ research
potential and soft skills. Presumably, DPs can become a valuable, user-friendly ESP tertiary teacher’s
tool and be adopted for ESP teaching practice.
2 METHODOLOGY
2.1 ThingLink service overview
In Russia, the most recognized media platform for creating DPs is ThingLink, a service launched in
2010 in Finland and first introduced for Russian users in 2015 [5]. This cloud-based service falls into a
similar category as Glogster and Prezi, which offer an alternative to traditional assignment and
presentation formats. ThingLink recognizes objects and link them to any information on the Internet. A
ThingLink product creator can upload or import static images and add them to create ‘interactive
learning modules (ILMs)’, which can be navigated by the audience. Once the focus image is uploaded
or linked to via URL or Flickr, the user clicks on the area to insert Rich Media Tags (RMT). RTM are
special points added to an image linking it to other images (Flickr, Instagram, Imgur), audio
(SoundCloud, Spotify, Rdio), texts, videos (YouTube, Vimeo, TED, Bambuser), social media (Twitter,
Facebook, Linkedin, Polldaddy, Google Maps, Meetup and others), documents (Slideshare, Scribd,
Wikipedia), photos, drawings, etc. The platform identifies the type of media contained within the tag
and creates the necessary functions to display it. The ThingLink creations (digital posters or interactive
videos) are stored on the platform, and, although not downloadable, can be handled in a variety of
ways (kept private, made public or be a collaborative work with others on ThingLink) [3].
With over three million content creators, ThingLink has become the most popular cross-platform
multimedia solution allowing to integrate digital creations with Twitter, Edmodo, WordPress, Schoology,
Blogger, Facebook, Google Sites, etc. In 2016, ThingLink launched its first virtual reality content
application called VR Lessons, providing a collection of high quality, interactive, 360° image and video
journeys on a variety of topics including science, language and arts. Although being announced as a
product for elementary school students, the app is expected to become an indispensable multimedia
tool for many disciplines at all educational levels.

2.2 Purpose of the study
In this paper the authors would like to share their experience of integrating ThingLink digital posters in
Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU) Business and Economics students’ ESP
curriculum. The current piece of research introduces the first stage of an educational project targeted
at digitalization of ESP teaching and learning at BMSTU.
The study was aimed at assessing a potential of using ThingLink digital posters in ESP teaching and
learning process and establish a link between using DPs and ESP students’ learning outcomes.
Specifically, the following research question was to be answered:
Did ThingLink digital posters have any positive effect on ESP students’ acquisition of English subject-
specific terminology and comprehension of profession-oriented topics being taught in English?
2.3 Creation of ThingLink digital posters for teaching ESP to Business and
Economics students
Business and Economics was deliberately chosen of all BMSTU specialties for piloting digital posters
for two reasons. First, there is abundance of free teaching materials on ESP in this field, as well as
other relevant information that can enrich ESP lesson content and inspire learners’ interest in this
professional area. Second, when senior business and economics students are taught ESP in a format
close to English as a Medium of Instruction, ESP teachers often have difficulties in facilitating students’
acquisition of some decontextualized theoretical issues on economics for which there is little
illustrative material and which can be only visualized using graphs at best.
When being taught ESP in ‘English only’ format, without using L1 as an intermediary, Business and
Economics students have to struggle with understanding profession-oriented lesson content [9] and
have a problem of acquiring specific vocabulary found in research journals and websites [13]. Creation
of a topic-specific DP for ESP teacher presentation is supposed to facilitate specific language
acquisition, widen students’ knowledge about a curricular topic, promote ‘teacher-student’
communication capacity and cultivate general students’ interest in study [1], [2].
Figure 1. Digital poster “Merger@Acquisition”.
Thorough analysis of the issues presented in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year Business and Economics
students ESP curricula and available teaching materials being used in BMSTU ESP classrooms
helped the authors to choose three topics for developing three digital posters: “Business planning”,
“Incoterms” and “Merger@Acquisition”. All selected topics are presented in the ESP curricular
textbooks used for Business and Economics students’ classroom activities and homework. Then, the
DP creators decided to choose a free ThingLink service plan including safe browsing and 100
students, without subscribing for VR content application. The rejection of ThingLink VR App was
caused by purely economic nature of the selected topics, for which virtual reality integration was
superfluous.
Having used Google resources for choosing DPs background images, the authors created an account
on the ThingLink platform. Then they applied for e-dictionaries available on the Internet and created

references to subject-specific vocabulary and word clouds. The DP creators found lots of relevant
infographics illustrating the latest economic trends and business processes, WIKI articles and other
documents about the subjects. It is worth noting that all the materials found on the Internet especially
the texts were thoroughly selected and discussed. For each DP the creators chose a topic-specific
BBC audio, TED Talks videos and designed assignments to check students’ comprehension. The
authors were happy to find on the Internet an extremely valuable free resource for “Incoterms” (a DP
made for the 2nd year Logistics students): a ready-made Quizlet on the topic providing memory games
and self-assessment tests for the topic learners [15].
As a result, all the selected references were tagged, annotated and embedded in the posters. By
means of QR-code generator, each digital poster got its own QR code for easier students’ access and
content recognition. Having discussed and edited the DPs content, the authors integrated them in their
ESP teaching practice in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students’ groups participating in a piloting
experiment.
2.3.1 Assessment tools
To make sure that ThingLink digital posters facilitated Business and Economics students’ vocabulary
acquisition and widened students’ content knowledge, the authors developed topic-specific tests built
on the multiple-choice principle for each of three DPs. Each test consists of ten questions. Five
questions of ten are targeted at checking students’ topic terminology acquisition, e.g.:
Increased value measured on an index or scale is called ………….
a) added value b) intrinsic value c) par value d) incremental value
Other five questions are aimed at assessing students’ understanding of the topic content, e.g.:
In Incoterms …………, the seller must pay the costs and freight necessary to bring the goods to the
named port of destination. The seller also has to procure marine insurance against the buyer´s risk or
loss or damage to the goods during the carriage.
a) CIF b) DDP c) CFR d) EXW c) FOB
The approach to assessing learners’ outcomes was very simple: for each correct answer a learner got
one point [11], [12]. The tests were provided in digital and printed forms.
2.4 Experiment
In order to answer research question 1, a piloting experiment was initiated at the Department of
English for Industrial Engineering, with 80 student participants from the faculty of Engineering
Business and Management and six ESP teachers on board. Given that DPs were developed for the
1st, 2nd and 3rd year students, it was necessary to divide the experiment into three parts:
Part 1: “Business planning” (1st year students)
Part 2: “Incoterms” (2nd year students)
Part 3: “Merger & Acquisition” (3rd year students)
The experiment took place in the ESP classroom, with no possibility for students’ sourcing information
about it in advance or changing a learning style. Within every part of the experiment the participating
students were divided into a control group (CG) and an experimental group (EG), with both groups
having the same number of students (from 10 to 16) and the same topic being taught. When working
with control groups, ESP teachers asked the student participants to read content-specific texts in the
curricular ESP textbook, do the listening and writing tasks. In experimental group, ESP teachers
introduced a new topic by means of a ThingLink digital poster, enhancing an opportunity for the
students to watch and discuss videos, listen to native speakers’ pronunciation of the vocabulary, use
Quizlet app, play memory games, source any topic-relevant data on the spot and make notes.
At the end of the lesson, the participants of control and experimental groups were asked to do the
same test. The tests in both groups were to be completed within 20 minutes. CG students were
handed printed copies of the test, with a teacher checking the results by the next lesson. In EG, the
students got access to a test placed in a Google form via QR-code. The results of EG tests were

available half an hour later. Students were provided with the explanation for their incorrect answer via
e-mail.
2.4.1 Limitations of the experiment
The experiment carried out with a view to answer the research question had some limitations. In the
course of teaching it turned out that some of the participating 1st and 3rd year control group students
were well aware of the DPs subjects as they had been engaged earlier in research projects on similar
topics. Despite the fact that those projects had not been implemented in ESP settings, those students
were far ahead of other control group participants in respect of topic content comprehension. It could
not help but distort the experiment results.
Even so, it was decided not to discontinue the experiment and take preventive actions against such
oversights in the future.
3 RESULTS
The tests completed by control group (CG) and experimental group (EG) participants were assessed,
with one point assigned for each correct answer. As the experiment was divided into three parts, its
results were analyzed in the same manner.
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare control and experimental group results,
with standard deviation, mean and median calculated for every part of the experiment. It has to be
noted that there was a significant difference only in the scores of control and experimental groups
included in Part 2 of the experiment - “Incoterms”.
Despite these uneven results and given the above limitations of the experiment, it was concluded that
using digital posters in ESP classroom really do have an effect on students’ specific terminology
acquisition and subject topic comprehension provided that the experiment goes according to plan and
the material introduced is new for all learners. Given the positive feedback of all participants, it was
decided to continue experimental work aimed at digitalization of ESP teaching at BMSTU.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The described experience of using ThingLink digital posters for teaching ESP has showed that the
platform can be used as an independent digital tool or serve as an add-on to Moodle. Despite the
mixed results of the experiment, DPs undoubtedly have great potential in ESP tertiary context and
provide significant benefits for all stakeholders: ESP students, teachers and university.
It has become clear that DPs help to increase students’ engagement in ESP learning process on the
basis of regularly updated authentic materials, provide an opportunity to perform tasks remotely,
develop students’ collaborative and communicative skills and raise motivation for e-learning [16].
As for ESP teachers, by means of DPs they can acquire such benefits as visual support of their own
didactic materials, personalization of video content available on the Internet and can take advantage of
a new way of organizing students’ project and research work. With these digital tools, ESP teachers
can also initiate video exchange with colleagues, get access to a wide network of ThingLink product
creators and respond to university agenda for developing digital skills [14]. Undoubtedly, DP is not a
ready-made guidance for a novice ESP teacher. Effective Digital Poster Presentation is a skill to be
worked on. However, all the teachers participating in the above experiment appreciated using
ThingLink creations in their ESP practice and volunteered to develop DPs for other BMSTU
specialties.
Allowing to integrate mobiles in teaching process, DPs help to decrease costs and extend the number
of students engaged in Web-projects. For universities ThingLink provides an affordable, cost-effective
digital instrument for achieving educational goals of XXI century.
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