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Denise Marchini
Oral Communication
Portrait of Denise Marchini:
I come from the United States, and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I studied in the state of New York, completing an M.A. in Linguistics at SUNY at Stony Brook. Early on in my professional life I made English for Special Purposes my specialty. I have never been satisfied with just the teaching end of this field but have always tried to stay on the cutting edge of the business side of ESP. I've therefore always tried to combine the following: teaching English as a second language (business English, technical English), writing English teaching materials, editing and managing publishing projects in this field, marketing and selling courses and materials, teacher and schoolowner training.
I began working at the 'HTL' in Oensingen in 1995 with the task of setting up the English curriculum, and a brief to focus on the English our graduating students would need in their professions, incorporate the Internet, find and/or design a certificate in technical English. Business English was a new field when I started working in my profession years ago in New York, and having been involved in the development of the field, I was able to apply this know-how to 'technical' English, the first step being to define 'technical' English.
As a part of my brief I also developed 'English Services', which has now been broken into separate projects, some of which are the Certificate in English for Technical Purposes, Certificate in English for Business Purposes, Translation and Correction Service, Tailor-made in-company Coaching in Business and/or Technical English, English Consulting, etc.
Now (2000) in the new International Management major at FHSO I am teaching a small module, a part of 'Oral Communication' to a highly motivated group. It is a change to teach a subject in English as opposed to teaching English as a Foreign Language. I feel that the Swiss undergraduate and graduate studies can and will fill a valuable niche on the European market by offering studies in an international language, which, by chance of history, is now English.