“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in certain expression and knowledge.

In view of the fore-mentioned quotation, explain role of ESP teacher and highlight the application of ESP.

Introduction of ESP:

English has become the globally accepted language of almost all the fields of knowledge. Depending on
their specific needs, necessities and requirements, new pupils who knew exactly why they need English are
produced. In some cases people with poor proficiency in English need to be taught to handle specific jobs.
To fulfill the needs of these new learners’ new specific courses were planned, designed and introduced. ESP
is one of these specific courses.

Growth of ESP:

From the early 1960's, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to become one of the most prominent
areas of EFL teaching today. Its development is reflected in the increasing number of universities offering
an MA in ESP (e.g. Aston University in the UK, the University of Birmingham and NUML in Pakistan) and
in the number of ESP courses offer for foreign students in English speaking countries.
For examples: English for Chemists, English for Educationists, English for Advertisements, English for
Media, etc.

Meaning of ESP:

Tony Dudley Evens has defined ESP in the terms of its absolute characteristics and variable
characteristics.

a. Absolute Characteristics:
 Meets particular needs of learners.
 Makes use of underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves.
 Is centered on the language appropriate to these activities in terms of grammar, genre, lexis, syntax,
study skills, discourse, etc.
b. Variable Characteristics:
 Might be associated to or designed for specific disciplines.
 May use, in specific situations, different methodologies and approaches from general English.
 Is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at an academy or at a work place.
 Is generally designed for intermediate level and advanced students.
 Most of the ESP courses assume some basic or prior knowledge of the language systems.
 ESP is an approach to teaching and training.
 ESP is an attitude of mind and it is concerned with turning learners into users.

Hutchinson et al. (1987:19) state,

“ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are
based on the learner’s reason of learning.”
------------------------- Hutchinson et al. (1987:19)

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Types of ESP:

David Carter (1983) identifies three types of ESP:

 English as a restricted language, e.g. of a pilot, or a waiter. (Only used for specific contexts.)
Knowing this type of English may not help to communicate effectively outside the specific context.
 English for Academic and Occupational Purposes, English for Academic Purposes (EAP), e.g.
English for medical studies. English for Occupational Purposes (EOP), e.g. English for Technicians.
 English with specific topics, Uniquely concerned with projected future English needs, e.g. Scientists
requiring English for postgraduate studies or attending conferences.

Characteristics of ESP courses:

Carter (1983) discusses three characteristics of ESP courses.

 Authentic material: Learning material must be authentic and genuine.

 Purpose-related orientation: Orientation lessons must be according to the needs of the learners.
 Self-direction: Learners must have a step of freedom to choose what, when and how they will study.

Hutchinson and Waters illustrated their idea of ELT by the picture of a tree. This tree shows:

 Base of language communication.

 Branches of languages.
 Teaching of a language.
 What is L1 and L2?
 What is based on ESP?
 What are the major differences between a GE and ESP?
 Where is ESP used?
 Why do we need to learn ESP?
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The tree shows a very strong picture that GE is much different rather than ESP. So, a question arises here
that how ESP (English for Specific Purpose) is different from GE (General English)?

Differences between ESP and GE:

ESP GE
Specialized lexis General writing skills
Goal-oriented students Free-time activity
Motivation related to job Songs and literature
Techniques Time for games
Business correspondence Social event
Teach negotiation & presentation Relaxed atmosphere
More serious More freedom

Similarities in GE and ESP:

ESP GE
Grammar and function General vocabulary
Small talk and current events Survival English
Concern about abilities Everyday English
 Pg. 3 of 10
Role of ESP teacher

ESP teacher or ESP Practitioner:

Dudley Evans and St. John (1998) prefer the term “ESP practitioner”, they described the true ESP teacher
or ESP Practitioner (Swales, 1988) needing to perform five different roles.

1) Teacher
2) Collaborator
3) Course designer and materials provider
4) Researcher
5) Evaluator

The ESP practitioner as a teacher:

The teacher’s main role is to generate real, authentic communication in the classroom on the grounds of
students’ knowledge.
Methodologies are changed when the teaching becomes more specific and in ESP classes, the teacher is no
longer a primary knower, in the case of very specific courses, the students themselves are frequently the
primary knowers of the carrier content of the material.

The ESP practitioner as a collaborator:

St. John and Dudley-Evans also described the ESP teacher as a collaborator who is a co-operator with
subject specialists. In their perception, it could be a simple cooperation in which ESP practitioner growths
information about the program of study, students have to accomplish in their professional life or
collaboration when there is integration between specialist studies and the language.

The ESP practitioner as a Course designer and materials provider:

Because of lacking of materials for ESP courses, one of the ESP teacher’s roles is planning the course first,
then providing authentic materials for this purpose. The teacher is responsible for adapting material. If
published material is not appropriate then create or write own material.

The ESP practitioner as a researcher:

An ESP teacher also needs to work as a researcher. First, a practitioner researches its aims in what he/she
hunger to succeed. After that, research is essential to design a course, to put pen to paper teaching materials
and to catch out the ESP students’ particular concern.

The ESP practitioner as an evaluator:

Although to function as an evaluator is not a new designation in educational field, it is so common in GE;
the role of evaluator seems to be very substantial in ESP. Every teacher should be participated in various
types of evaluation and the most popular is “testing” students. Tests are conducted to evaluate students’
performances and the teaching success or effectiveness. Another type of testing should occur in ESP classes,
that is: evaluation of course and teaching resources. An ESP course is often tailor-made, their evaluation is
critical. Because subjects’ experts usually study well to create a program, to design a course, to evaluate and
specially GE courses are done with proof reading while, ESP courses are exclusive, it is impossible to make
one ESP course that would be great with all ESP students. Such a course is must. As a consequence, the
assessment of such a course is must. Constant evaluation is a main element to create an effective successful
ESP course.
 Pg. 4 of 10

ESP Teaching Objectives:

Stern distinguished four types of ESP teaching objectives:

(i) Proficiency objectives
(ii) Knowledge objectives
(iii)Affective objectives
(iv) Transfer objectives

Proficiency objectives concern expert of skills such as reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Knowledge objectives concern the acquisition of linguistic and cultural data, material, facts and figure.
Affective objectives concern the development of optimistic feelings toward the subject of study.
Transfer objectives concern the ability to generalize from what has been learnt in one situation to other
situations.

Helen Basturkmen describes the five broad objectives in ESP teaching:

(i) to disclose subject-specific language use
(ii) to develop target performance competencies
(iii) to teach core knowledge
(iv) to develop strategic proficiency
(v) to support critical awareness.

The ESP teacher needs to have the knowledge about:

 Why does the student need to learn?

 Who is going to be involved in the process?
 Where is the learning to take place?
 What potential does the place provide?
 What limitation does the place impose?
 When is the learning to take place?
 How much time is available? How will it be distributed?
 What level of proficiency must be achieved?
 What topics areas will need to be covered?
 How will learning be achieved?
 What learning theory will underlie the course?
 What kind of methodology will be employed?
 What does the student need to learn? What aspects of language will be needed and how will they be
described?
 Pg. 5 of 10

Application of ESP:

Application is the major section in ESP. Four key elements are included in application of ESP. They are:

Course/syllabus design Materials

Evaluation Methodology

Course/syllabus design

The term “syllabus” shows an outline for a course and it can be defined as:
‘A syllabus is a legally-binding contract between the instructor and the student’.

Hutchinson and Waters (1981) wrote:

“course design is a process by which the raw data about a learning need is interpreted in order to
produce an integrated series of teaching-learning experiences, whose ultimate aim is to lead the
learners to particular state of knowledge”.

Course design is an arbitrary process. The ESP learning situation and the target situation will both affect the
nature of the syllabus, materials, methodology and evaluation procedures. Course design is a dynamic and
active procedure that is why; some essential questions are preferred to think first, such as:

a. Why does the student need to learn?

b. What does the student need to learn?
c. Who will be involved in the process? (students, teachers, promoters, inspectors etc.)
d. Where is the learning to take place?
e. When is the learning to take place?

Criteria to design a syllabus: Different criteria used for breaking down the syllabus in ESP Courses:

a) Topic syllabus: (like, The Rig-Fishing Jobs-Traps and Geology, etc.)Structural/Situational syllabus:
(like, The Hotel and Staff-verb to be& wh-questions and prepositions);

b) Skills and strategies: (like, exercises in: personal evaluation, examining your job needs, using want
ads.); an organizing our studies, taking notes, improving our reading.

Approaches to syllabus design:

There are probably as many different approaches to ESP course design as there are course designers and
three main approaches are stated below:
 Language-centered course design
 Skills-centered course design
 Learning-centered course design
 Pg. 6 of 10
Objective:
 Basic objective to design an ESP course is to enhance speaking skills.
 Second objective is to improve their knowledge of grammar.
 Third objective to design this course is to improve their expressions in the target language.
 Final objective is to heighten their communicative skills.

Materials

Materials play a crucial role in ESP and have received considerable attention in the literature of the subject.
They depend on the methodologies adopted. Materials are used to facilitate the teaching and learning
process. (Tomlinson, 1998)

Basically, four main forms of materials are common, they are:

a) Linguistic
b) Auditory
c) Visual
d) Kinaesthetic

Materials are source of language. They are used to motivate and support language instruction and their
design is a significant element in ESP. They may also include audio and visual aids, computer resources,
real object, model or performance. Since the objective of ESP materials is to reveal learners to real language
as it is used in a range of professional or academic life, they are to be closely related to students’ target
needs.

When we need to design materials for ESP, designing materials in ESP consider:
needs and wants of the learners
Language choice
Development of specific skills
Strategies for operating in ESP context

Main Categories of Materials:

 Teacher-generated Materials
 Learner-generated Materials
 Authentic Materials

Materials Selection:
To select material is a very responsible duty. A teacher or administration needs to be careful about selection
of materials. Because materials should be appropriate to the subject. They should not go out of the projected
topic. Teacher must know the level of the students’ language knowledge, skill and the target level what
students need to achieve (course objectives). Select or design that material which will simulate the students’
real-life situation as closely as probable.

Lewis & Hill wrote something about teachers that teachers should consider the following questions in
selecting the materials.
 Will the materials be useful to the students?
 Do they stimulate students’ curiosity?
 Are the materials relevant to the students and their needs?
 Are they fun to do?
 Will the students find the tasks and activities worth doing?
 Pg. 7 of 10
Sources of Materials:

I) Textbook-based
 Readily available
 Psychologically represents something concrete
 Publishers, commercial companies
 Bookstores, conferences, colleagues, friends, web pages
 Teachers will know what materials are available and what materials are appropriate for various
purposes
 Be creative

II) Tailor-made
 More precisely geared to the needs of the students
 Collecting the materials when the teachers go abroad to English speaking country
 Browsing the internet for ideas
 TVs and radios (current information)
 Printed materials
 Provide the teachers with the opportunity to decide on the vocabulary, functions and structures
combination that will be most relevant
 Materials are not just a mere tools that can be randomly use to assist the teaching and learning
process, but, materials are also one of the important aspects in teaching ESP to guide the teachers
and students in understanding the subjects better.

Although a lot of materials are used in ESP, every material should be relevant, such as: typically texts or
web-based information, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.
“Authentic materials are used to create indispensable communication context in the classroom and to
simulate as much as possible the communication observable in the real world outside” (Richards,
2001).

Methodology

Robinson identifies two characteristic of ESP methodology: ESP can base activities on students’ specialism
and ESP activities can have a truly authentic purpose derived from students’ target needs.

Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) maintain that what characterizes ESP methodology is the use of tasks
and activities reflecting the students’ specialist areas. Post-experience ESP learners have specialist
knowledge from working or studying in their specialist areas and a ‘deep-end strategy’ can be used.
It follows that both the objective of an ESP course and its content are adjusted to the needs of the target
audience. However, since both methodologies are based on the communicative approach to ELT, teaching
English either for general or specific purposes is oriented at the development of linguistic, communicative,
cultural and intercultural competences allowing learners to naturally function in English in various
professional and academic lives.

Accordingly, methods and tools available to the ESP teacher are the ones that are used in general ELT and
draw on the following approaches:
 activity-oriented approach, which stresses the interdependence of language and context;
 skill-oriented approach, the objective of which is the development of receptive and/or productive
skills;
 genre-oriented approach, where language learning focuses on texts representing different genres;
 task-oriented approach, in which learners perform tasks inspired by real-life communicative
activities in professional life.
 Pg. 8 of 10

Different types of methodologies are used to create different activities, for example:
 Observations
 Informal Discussion
 Formal interviews
 Questionnaire analysis

 Observations: During observations we acknowledged that what should be the strategies for
designing the course for them.
 Informal Discussion: In this we have asked them about their free schedule and general information
about their job requirements, in response they said they want this course on sat-sun ,secondly they
can only spare 1 hour max.
 Formal interviews: Majority of the teachers wanted to improve their speaking and writing skills.
They said that they feel it difficult to communicate in English in the class. Some of teachers wanted
to improve their vocabulary, and some of them said that they want to improve their pronunciation as
well.
 Questionnaire analysis: some examples of question analysis are written below:
a. Why do you want to learn English?
b. Which aspect of English is difficult for you?
c. What area will you use of this language in your job?
d. Who will be the people you use English with?
e. What will be the physical setting, in which English will be used?
f. What amount English will be used in?
g. What context you will use English in?

Evaluation

Pauline Robinson defines evaluation as “the discovery of the value for some purposes”.
Other clearer definition is proposed by Alderson and Murphy who wrote that “evaluation is
concerned with describing what is there and placing some value on what is found”.

 Evaluation is a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose.

 Evaluation is concerned with relative merit- no absolute good or bad – only degrees of
appropriateness for the required purposes.

 The evaluation of existing materials can provide a good source of ideas (of what to avoid as well as
what to do) and techniques.

Evaluation in ESP:

 ESP has developed in response to certain pressures.

 Developments in the theoretical bases of language teaching indicated a need to pay more attention to
the individual learner.

 The world of commerce and technology were producing host of people with specific language
learning needs at that time.

 A demand was generated as a result for courses which would equip particular learners with necessary
skills to carry out particular tasks in English.
Pg. 9 of 10
  There are many ways in which ESP course can be evaluated ranging from stimulations to suggestion
boxes. However, in practice, most ESP courses are evaluated using one or more of these techniques,
for instance: Test results, Questionnaires, Discussions, Interviews, Informal means (e.g. ‘casual’
chats etc.)

 The scope of involvement of any group of a course will vary, but it is likely that the bodies most
closely concerned will be the ESP teaching institution, the ESP teachers, the learners and the course
sponsors.

 Former students can also provide useful information.

 It is important to get a representative cross-section of views and to take them properly into account.

 Orientation exercises can be used to get learners’ comfortable for expressing their views honestly
and frankly.

 Conclusion:

English for specific purposes has emerged as a noteworthy field in Applied Linguistics. It is mostly
concerned with the learners’ needs for a specific field of academics or occupation. Delimited skills of words
and expressions, purpose of learning the language are the areas to be considered in ESP.

ESP teachers’ role is a complex and responsible more than teaching General English. The ESP teacher does
not only teach but also designs a syllabus, provides materials, collaborates with subject specialists, organize
a class, conducts research and evaluates the course and the students. He/she is to be aware of the course
objectives and be flexible with the learners. A professional ESP teacher must be able to switch from one
professional field to another. He/she basically brings the necessary tools, frameworks and principles for
designing to apply new material. We should always remember that the ESP teacher is not specialized in the
field, but in teaching English.

“A teacher becomes like a language adviser in ESP class, having equal status with the learners who
are often expert in the subject matter”.

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