STUDENTS’ COMPETENCES IN MULTI-NOUN LEXICAL UNITS AND THEIR OPINION ON THE LANGUAGE TEST

A special feature of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), particularly technical English are multi-noun lexical units (MNLUs) which are syntagms consisting of a string of nouns (noun + noun + noun +…..) appearing in great numbers especially in written specialized texts. Such texts serve as basic ESP teaching materials at institutions of higher education where English is taught as the first foreign language. The aim of this research paper is to establish students’ competences in reception/interpretation and production of MNLUs at the end of the first academic year and at the end of the second academic year, the latter being the final year of institutionalized ESP teaching. The research sought to find out the extent to which students master these competences without targeted teaching and to establish whether the achieved level is satisfactory. A language test was used as the research instrument, followed by an open-ended question seeking to get the insight into students’ opinions regarding the language test and MNLUs. The obtained data were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods.