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!!!
Comments
Post a Comment