A Study on ESP Teacher Education Model in Indonesia: Buton Raya Context Wawan Cahyadin, Bakrie

Graduate Scholarship Awardee Cohort 2012

A. Introduction

English for Specific Purpose (ESP) course has been taught over the years in many secondary vocational
schools, academies and universities in Indonesia. However, the ESP teaching practice nationwide
including in Buton Raya are confronting with several serious problems. One of the major problems lies
on its teachers. The vast majority of ESP teachers throughout the country do not have any qualification
in ESP but General English (GE) leading them teach ESP course the way they teach GE. As a result, the
truly goals of the ESP course are not achievable. Therefore, cultivating ESP teacher and proposing a
model of ESP teacher education is indispensable in order for such teachers to deal successfully with ESP
which in turn will contribute to the efficacy of ESP teaching practice. This paper will attempt to first
review the existing ESP schools in Buton Raya in particular and Indonesia in general as comparison, then
will briefly explain certain theories underlying ESP. The next, the paper will analyze the existing and the
practice of ESP schools in several countries and will finally propose ESP teacher education models. It is
important that ESP schools that will be a central of the review in this paper are those in level of higher
education since very few literature have been found on those in level of vocational secondary education.

B. Review of the existing ESP schools in Buton Raya

In Buton Raya area, there are five vocational higher institutions comprising AKPER Buton, STIKES IST,
AKBID, STIKES Mandala and AMIK Milan Darma. The first four schools offer nursing and midwifery
program and all are located in Baubau except STIKES Mandala which is located in Wakatobi, while the
last school offers computer science and management program and is located in Baubau. Of all those ESP
schools, AKPER Buton is the only state-owned school. Similarly to the other ESP schools areas in
Indonesia, English is taught as a compulsory subject as English for Specific Purpose in those schools with
aim at equipping its student with language skills that they (will) need in workplace in which the
proficiency in English language is required plus making them more competitive and more easily-
absorbed in the job market arena either in Buton Raya or in other areas in Indonesia including in
international arena. Based on observation and informal interview with some teachers who teach ESP, it is
found that all ESP teachers in those schools are not specially prepared and trained for teaching ESP, in
fact they are GE teachers. This fact may represent most of the ESP teachers in Indonesia as a number of
research on ESP in Indonesian context carried out by Kusni (2004, 2007 and 2009) suggesst the similar
fact (Kusni, 2011). With respect to the education background, Kusni (2011) found that some of the ESP
teachers do not have any qualification in English teaching. However, this is not found in Buton Raya
context since every teacher teaching ESP in those schools graduated from English teaching or English
literature and the only problem is that most of them simply have bachelor diploma and only few having
master diploma. Moreover, some teachers are found to teach more than one schools or in addition to
teaching at their main institution as full-time teacher, they may also have another ESP teaching
responsibility at the other institution as part-time teacher.

The aforementioned situation of the ESP teacher in Buton Raya area has resulted in some negative
implications for several aspects of ESP teaching. First of all, the fact that they are GE teacher and have
never been specially trained for teaching ESP class has greatly influenced their way and style of teaching
ESP. From observation and interview with a few of teachers, the ESP teachers employ Grammar
Translation Method (GTM) in which lexical items and sentence structure are introduced and explained
and subsequently students are asked to answer a range of exercises at the end of the class or are
assigned to do the exercise at home. Such a teacher-centered learning is justified by Paniya (2008) who
argue that for years the ESP instruction in Indonesia has been limited to specialized lexicon and sentence
structures and ignored the learners’ interest. He further argues that it often demotivates students to
learn. The ESP teachers predominantly control the class and do not provide opportunities to students to
engage actively during the class, the students are passive and merely listen to their teacher’s
explanation. Furthermore, they claim to have no adequate knowledge in the specific subject matter of
the student context. Kusni (2011) claims that those facts indicate that ESP teachers are not professional
and make ESP course ‘amburadul’ (Kusni 201:78). A second implication has to do with the most critical
issue in ESP, a needs analysis. Again, they are GE teachers and not well-trained and do not consider a
needs analysis as an important step to do prior to their teaching. As a result, the material and course
content can not be ensured to have matched the students’ need. Still according to the teacher, they
claim that some students consider ESP course less important since they might think that they plan to
work inside the country and such view is a mistake. Aniroh (2009) justifies this and argues that such
students’ view influences the teachers’ interest in teaching ESP. However, for sure, an investigation is
needed to gather information from students on their attitude on ESP course. The thing is sure that the
ESP teachers simply make use of commercial textbooks available in bookstore as main source of material
and are very rare to use authentic material. In fact, for several ESP teachers one single textbook is even
already sufficient. In addition, the vocational higher institutions in Buton Raya do not regulate and
supervise the ESP teachers in designing the material and just let the teachers decide the ESP material on
their own. We may then infer that there could have been a mismatch between students’ need and
course content on the ground that no needs analysis have been conducted. Furthermore, the
unavailability of adequate facilities such ICT facilities as internet and language laboratory at campus
which are accessible for both teachers and students has made the ESP teaching and learning worse.

C. Theoretical Framework

To support the analysis, this paper will use the theory of Lawson (1979), Hutchinson and Waters (1987),
Robinson (1991) and Richard (2001) on needs analysis and theory of Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) on
the role of the ESP teacher. These theories will underlie a model of ESP teacher education offered at the
end of this paper.

Needs Analysis

As it is widely accepted that ESP students is to be taught on the things that they need in order to
perform their task in the job situation. English as language is to be used to support them in their
working activities where the ability in language is required. The only way in order for the teachers to
know their students needs and interest is through a needs analysis. It seems that the needs analysis is a
“heart” of an ESP whatever its kind. Lawson (1979 cited in Astika) defines a need as “something that is
recognized but it is not in any sense “discovered”, and its existence derives from whatever criteria are
thought to be relevant in making the diagnoses. He argues that in order to recognize “needs” one would
have to carry out some kind of assessment. Hutchinson and Waters (1998, cited in Kusni 2011) make a
useful division of learners’ needs into necessitate (what the learner has to know to function effectively),
lacks (what the learners knows and does not know already, and wants (what the learners think they
need). In terms of Robinson (1991, cited in Widodo) Hutchinson and Waters’ ‘lacks and wants’ is
categorized as present situation analysis and ‘necessitate’ as target situation analysis (see Widodo pg. 2).
Richard (2001, cited in Widodo) says that in ESP, learners need are frequently highlighted to
performance, what the learners will be able or expect to do with language at the end of a course of
study. All of these theories basically have the same principle which is that in ESP the learners’ need is
the central of the teaching and learning and thus this centrality makes it a must. It is not outrage to say
that without needs analysis an ESP course is nothing.

Roles of the ESP practitioners

Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998; 13) coined the term “practitioners” for ESP teachers since, they believe
that ESP work involves much more than teaching. Many pivotal roles such as course designers, materials
developers, researchers, evaluators, and classroom teachers should be taken on by an ESP instructor in
addition to their role as teacher. Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998; 13) mention that one of the basic
differences between ESP and GE teacher is that the teacher in ESP is not in the position of being ‘the
primary knower’ of the carrier content of the material. They further argue that the students in many
cases, certainly where the course is specifically oriented towards the subject content or work that the
students are engage in, know more about the content than the teacher. In other words, the students do
know more the context of the subject matter than the teachers do. At the same time it advocates that
teacher-centered learning that puts teachers as the source of knowledge is totally inappropriate in ESP
since it neglects the aspect for which the language skills is required to carry out function related to the
context, in this regard the students workplace situation.

As course designer and material provider, ESP practitioners often have to plan the course they teach and
provide the materials for it. The use of particular textbooks without need for supplementary material is
rarely possible. The ESP practitioners need to choose published material, adopt it or even write material
where to make it suitable (Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998; 14,15). It means that in the role as course
designer and material provider ESP practitioners may have three specific roles namely as a chooser,
adopter and writer of material as well.

Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998; 15) argue that ESP teachers need to be aware of and in touch with
research in the area of ESP. They advocate that research finding need to be able to be incorporated when
carrying out needs analysis, designing a course and or writing teaching materials. What they advocate
seems important since the ESP practitioners may benefit from the research finding primarily when they
it has to do with the specific context the teacher teach. This finding may varied in terms of needs
analysis, methodology, approach and model.

Since the ESP teacher lack knowledge in the student subject matter particularly when it is too specific, it
is highly advised to work with specific subject teacher. The ESP teacher may work with other teacher
which is knowledgeable in the subject matter to support their pedagogical knowledge in language.
According to Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) this may involve simply cooperation in which the ESP
teaches finds out about the subject syllabus in an academic context or the task the students have to
carry out in work or business situation (Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998; 16).

Similarly to GE teacher, an ESP teacher is also evaluator. The ESP teacher also needs to be able to devise
achievement test to assess how much learners have gained from a course. Evaluating course design
should be done while the course is being taught, at the end of the course and after the course has
finished (Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998; 16,17)

D. Analysis of the existing ESP schools in other countries

Asian Countries

In Saudi Arabia based on a research conducted by Liton, Mahmoud and Alom (2012), who
investigated into the effectiveness of ESP course in a community college, in terms of its material, found
that the content of the existing ESP text are not learner-centered and task-based practice oriented. This
is in line with Alharby who researched ESP for health professionals saying that at present, instructors
introduce the ESP program for the English language courses simply by selecting material from available
commercial text for teaching ESP for medical purpose along with material designed for teaching English
for general use or collecting different material in a handout. He also mentions that ESP practitioners in
Saudi Arabia are seeking applications of the ESP approach to serve different language programs designed
for different specialists.

In Iran, the classes are predominantly teacher-centered, with the exception of students being required to
read a few new lines from the booklet, one by one, offering the meaning of the words if they are asked.
Teacher offer students a model of the language forms along with technical terms and register which
provide the focus of a particular lesson. They produce model sentences and ask learners to translate.
They ask questions designed to elicit specific response which practices the target form for a particular
lesson, and finally they translate the selected text. What happen in Iran may due to the policy of the
Iranian government that stipulates the goals of ESP course is to develop students reading comprehension
skill in English to understand technical materials they may find in their fields. As a result the procedures
followed in ESP classes do not fulfill students’ need (Gholam, Kiany & Mafton, 2012: 3, Modirkhameneh
& Kashef, 2009:4).

In India in which English is a second language is a little astonishing. Shrivastava (2009), claims that
English for specific purpose in India context is at its infancy. In terms of material, he states that generally
the learners complaint that the prescribe textbooks do not satisfy their needs. They feel high scarcity of
appropriate words while at work place. In terms of teaching approach, based on his observation, India
still depends on conventional approach of examination oriented teaching. What exciting is that syllabus
especially in technical institute is designed in such a way that to some extent matches the goal of the
learners (Shristava 2009;2).

From above information it seems that the practice of the ESP teaching in Asian countries is quite similar
between countries and unfortunately this similarity forms their drawbacks with no exception to
Indonesia. Among the drawbacks that mostly found are: no needs analysis conducted to students; still
use teacher-centered approaches plus grammar translation method and inappropriateness and lack of
material.

Europe

In Estonia, a non-speaking English country in central Europe, the teaching of ESP has made use of
the ICT application to provide students with authentic materials. A research conducted by Vaiciuniene
and Uzpaliene (2010) to Finance and Economic and Business Informatics students of the Mykola Romeris
university highlighted the benefits of using authentic material through the use of ICT application. They
found that students think that authentic materials have educated values because they are unlimited
resources for professional knowledge development and keep students informed about what is
happening in the world. They also encourage students to communicate, interact, share thoughts and
exchange resources and in turn build greater confidence in using ESP and promote language process
itself. However, they found also that the students encounter language-related problem because some
authentic material may be too difficult to understand because of very specific vocabulary not relevant to
the students’ need and natural intonation, repetition of forms and phrases, redundancy and dialects as
well as the length of the text can result in problem. The result of this research may represent the
teaching of ESP in other non-speaking English countries in Europe since the development of technology
is immense. This shows that the application of ICT in ESP has advantage on one side and disadvantage on
the other side at least in the case of the researched students.

Latin America
 Brazil, a developing nation in Latin America where its population speaks Portuguese has its own
story in the teaching of ESP. It is found that during 1977 to 1979 the Brazilian government in partnership
with British Council implemented a project called as ESP Brazilian National Project in reacting to the
need of ESP teaching. This project has given legacy to the development of the present ESP teaching. One
of the legacies is methodology which emphasized the use of authentic texts, the teaching and learning of
reading strategies together with awareness of reading process that aims at enabling students to cope
with English written text in a short period of time, since most of the courses were offered in one or two
semesters. The other legacy is material production which changed from perspective of textbook that
generally emphasized vocabulary, decontextualized sentence and sometimes non authentic texts into a
strategy-skill based one. As results, the teachers were better prepared to produce their own material and
sometime they had to learn how to evaluate and adapt materials in order to customize them to their
specific group of students and this has made them able to design their courses independently.

E. The Offered ESP teachers education model

It is clear from all the information described above that the practice of the ESP teaching in Buton context
is not much different from that in some places in Indonesia, and could possibly represent the one in
most Asian countries. Before offering a model of ESP teacher education, several facts on the present
situation in the world of ESP teaching in Buton Raya in particular and Indonesia in general need to be
highlighted as follows:

1. All ESP teachers in Buton Raya are not trained to be ESP teacher and that’s why they are not
professional ESP teachers. Kusni (2011:78) argues that ESP courses in Indonesia should not be simply a
responsible of teacher, however, as the central decision makers in ESP (Kusni refers to EAP), ESP teacher
should be professional.

2. Need analysis as core of ESP practice have never been conducted in Buton Raya and it is more likely
to happen in most of the other places in Indonesia and this has implication on the teaching material
provided by the teacher to the students which is more likely not to match the students’ needs.

3. The methodology used in teaching ESP has not been updated, it is still conventional namely
Grammar Translation Method as a product of teacher-centered approach which is not suitable not only
to ESP but to GE as well.

4. The application of ICT in ESP teaching practice has never been done while it is found that in other
countries the students have benefited from using it despite some drawbacks but it seems that it gives
more advantage.

5. In addition, no information on the training program from the government aiming at empowering ESP
teachers in Indonesia
Having looked at those highlighted facts, an integrated model should be offered which combines self-
training and training program. Training program which is facilitated by vocational higher institution, local
government or national government can provide them with necessary skills through short training,
seminar and workshop in which they may listen to lesson learnt from other ESP practitioners on failure
and success story that may be applicable in their teaching context. It is also important to provide them
with the training on how to make use of ICT in teaching ESP since the trend of using ICT in Indonesian
classroom is rising and teaching activities may benefit from this primarily in terms of providing material
for ESP student to learn.

While the self training program is the self reflection of the teachers themselves during their ESP teaching
practice. According to Feng (2010), the self-training model can be developed through such various kinds
of approaches as self-directed learning of the concerned subject matter knowledge, pedagogical
knowledge, corpus-based analysis of target language to get familiar with discourse community; and a
classroom-oriented approach based on action research by involving ESP trainees in actual ESP settings
which will facilitate practitioners’ knowing in action, and help develop their theory in action,and make
reflective practitioners out of them. This is line with Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) on the roles of the
ESP teachers namely as researcher. They mention that ESP teacher needs to be able to incorporate
research finding when carrying out needs analysis, designing a course and or writing teaching materials.
It means that when they practice ESP teaching they conduct an action research to solve the problem that
may occur by using certain methodologies, approaches and models and then reflect soon after applying
them. Baily, Curtise, and Nunan (2004: 137 cited in Feng) point out the steps in the action research
cycle: 1) the identification of a puzzle or problem; 2) preliminary investigation to obtain baseline data
on the issue in question; 3) the formulation of an intervention strategy; 4) activation of the strategy
and documentation of the results; 5) reporting on the outcome; and 6) planning the next cycle in the
process. Usually an ideal result will be achieved after two or three cycles. The training program which is
integrated with self-training will result in professional teachers of ESP.

F. Conclusion

In conclusion, it seems that the practice of ESP teaching in Buton Raya and Indonesian context is still far
from ideal. Based on the literature on ESP, several important thing mainly needs analysis that they
should conduct is never done. On the other side they still function as GE teachers rather than ESP
teachers, that’s why a model of ESP teachers education is very necessary and it seems that self-training
plus training program will be a right choice while the other model like joint teaching has not been
appropriate since several factor may occurs.

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