"ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES" - Tony Dudley-Evans

Hello friends,

            I am back again with a review of an excellent research paper by Tony Dudley-Evans -“English for Specific Purposes”.

English for Specific purposes is a wide field so it is hard to define.

English for specific purposes (ESP) has for about 30 years been a separate branch of English Language Teaching. It has developed its own approaches, materials and methodology.

BACKGROUND

Need analysis is the important aspect of ESP. Unless you don’t go through Need analysis you cannot identify ESP. The first questions when starting preparation for teaching an ESP course is almost always: What do students need to do with English? Which of the skills do they need to master and how well? Which genres do they need to master, either for comprehension or production purposes? These questions need to be known by the instructor. However, in ESP one can be more precise about learners' needs; their needs are defined by a learning or occupational situation in which English plays a key role.

Robinson, in her first overview of ESP (1980), suggested that limited duration and adult learners are defining features of ESP courses. While it is true that the majority of ESP learners are adults, ESP can be taught at school. Similarly, ESP is generally taught to intermediate or advanced students of English, but can also be taught to beginners.

The teacher of ESP can exploit the teaching methods and approaches.

ESP is concerned with teaching language, discourse and relevant communication skills: it exploits topics and the underlying methodology of the target discipline or profession to present language, discourse and skills.

Next Tony Dudley-Evans highlights the characteristics of ESP.

Absolute Characteristics:-

1.) ESP is designed to meet the specific needs of the learner. ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves.

2.) ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities.

Variable characteristics:-

1.) ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines.

2.) ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of general English.

3.) ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary-level institution or in a professional work situation. It could, however, be used for learners at secondary school level.

4.) ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students. Most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners.

CLASSIFICATION

ESP is often divided up into various categories with mysterious acronyms. It is usually classified into two main categories: English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for occupational purposes (EOP). EOP is more complicated: it relates to professional purposes.

Another key distinction is between more general ESP and more specific ESP. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) - drawing on an idea from George Blue (Blue 1988) - make a distinction between English for general academic purposes (EGAP)  and English for specific academic purposes (ESAP) designed to meet specific needs of a group from the same discipline.

A similar distinction can be made between the teaching of general business-related language and skills (English for general business purposes; EGBP) and the teaching of specific business language for skills such as negotiation, or the writing of letters or faxes (English for specific business purposes; ESBP). In the USA, ESAP is often called content-based instruction (CBI), which is seen as separate from ESP (Brinton et al. 1989). In the USA, EVP (English for vocational purposes) is frequently used for teaching English for specific trades or vocations. This branch of EOP is often sub-divided into vocational English (concerning language and skills needed in a job) and prevocational English (concerning skills needed for applying for jobs and being interviewed).

RESEARCH

Many of the researchers like Swales, Masuku etc. have done research in this field.

There are many types of research as stated by Tony Dudley-Evans: -Means analysis, Target situation analysis, Learning situation analysis, Present situation analysis.

Focus is also given on Text analysis.

THE NEED FOR TEXT ANALYSIS

 However much priority is given to needs analysis and the various approaches to it outlined above, I believe that the key stage in ESP course design and materials development is the action needed following this needs analysis stage. This next stage is when the ESP teacher considers the (written or spoken) texts that the learner has to produce and/or understand, tries to identify the texts' key features and devises teaching material that will enable learners to use the texts effectively.

PRACTICE

Tony argues that ESP is a materials-led field. Most materials, however, are prepared by individual teachers for particular situations, and there is not a huge amount of published ESP material.

CURRENT and FUTURE TRENDS and Directions

 Lesson Planning and material development are important part of ESP.

Tony also expect future research in genre analysis to go in two directions: first, concern with the broader picture of how discourse communities work and the role text plays within them will continue; second, specific corpora will be used to investigate the phraseology of particular specialist genres in specialist disciplines and professions.

According to her, ESP teachers and researchers can have an increased role as 'genre doctors', advising disciplines and professions on the effectiveness of their communication. ESP teacher should not act just as interpreter of the way that the subject teacher communicates information in lectures or his/her priorities in marking assignments/examination answers. She suggests that ESP should develop awareness in ESP students of how they can assert their rights, by, e.g., insisting on asking questions about points the lecturer has not made clear.

CONCLUSION

ESP has its own movements, its own journal and, above all, its own procedures. It is still, however, very much part of applied linguistics and continues to be influenced by developments there; it also plays its own role in the development of applied linguistics.

Enjoy Reading!!!