Narrow – And Wide-Angle

Course Design
Narrow-angled courses are devised
for learners with very similar needs
and are highly specialized. Or
‘narrow angled’ is used to refer to
courses for learners targeting one
particular work place, professional
or academic environment .
 Wide-angled ESP courses are devised for
learners with needs that are only somewhat
similar and less specialized. In other words,
‘wide angled’ is used to refer to courses for
learners targeting abroad work place,
professional or academic field.
 Illustration

English for Specific

Academic
Purposes (ESAP)

English for
English for Social
Engineering
Science
Studies

English for English for

English for Civil
Chemical computer
Engineering
Engineering engineering
 How specific, or narrow-angled, ESP
courses should be?
• Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) state that
where needs are limited, a narrow-angle
course may be appropriate and the course can
legitimately focus on a few target events and
use content or topics from one discipline.
Where the needs are more general, the course
can focus on a wider range of target events
and use content and topics from a range of
disciplines.
 Another argumentation
Specialized ESP (a narrow-angled or product-
oriented approach) is supported for its
pedagogical effectiveness, needs-based
approach, and workplace orientation on the
assumption that disciplinary or occupational
language variations can be identified and taught
Therefore, an increasing number of authors turn
to general ESP (a wide-angled or process-
oriented approach) which focuses on a common
core of languages, generic and transferable skills
and greater feasibility for ESP practitioners.
Some argue that the ESP courses should be as
narrow-angled as possible. Others argue that
this is not practical or that it is unnecessary as
learners can transfer what they learn from a
more general course to their own highly specific
area at a later stage.
• Ferris (2001) surveyed U.S. universities to find
that although most writers of scholarly
publications advocated the second position, in
reality, the majority of academic writing
programs followed the more generalized
approach.
• It seems that ESP can never be specific
enough on the one hand and on the other
hand can also be too specific at the same
time. (Shen, 2018.)
• It is essential that the course implementers,
such as teachers and students, hold a shared
meaning of course specificity to ensure the
alignment of goals and classroom practices
and students' interest. (Nha, 2015.)
 SPECIFIC AND
SPECIFIABLE ELEMENTS
IN ESP
• Needs analysis in ESP often focuses on the skills
learners need to study or work effectively in their
target environments.
• In analyzing needs, ESP curriculum designers
identify which microskills from a general pool of
skills used across a range of environments are
important for a particular group of ESP learners.
However, if a course aims to develop language
skills, instruction needs to offer more than
practice opportunities.
 The Explanation of Specific Elements
• ESP instruction is oriented to helping learners
become more aware of language use and
conceptual content (including cultural content)
critical in the workplace, academic, and
professional environments, and disciplines to
which they are headed.
• For example, instruction for the nursing students
reported in Bosher and Smalkoski (2002) was
oriented to cultural content. One of the needs
the English for nursing studies course sought to
address was ‘making small talk with clients.’
 The Explanation of Specifiable
Elements
In workplace, academic, or professional
environments and disciplines, certain language
forms and features may occur more frequently
than others and certain skills are used more
often than others. These can be identifi ed but
they are not exclusive to those environments or
disciplines. They are specifi able elements.
 SUMMARY
• Language varieties are based in and extend from
a common core of language. Or it can be argued
that language varieties are self-contained
entities.
• Needs analysis can be seen as an entirely
pragmatic and objective endeavour to help
course developers identify course content that is
truly relevant to the learners, or it can be argued
to have a bias in favour of the institutions and
may overemphasize objective needs at the cost of
subjective needs
• It can be argued that syllabuses should specify
content (what is to be taught). Or it can be
argued that they should specify method (how
language is to be taught).
• ESP courses should be as narrow-angled as
possible. Others argue that this is not practical or
that it is unnecessary as learners can transfer
what they learn from a more general course to
their own highly specifi c area at a later stage.
 References
• Basturkmen, H. (2005). Ideas and Options in
English for Specific Purposes.
• file:///C:/Users/ASUS/Downloads/27422-
43353-1-PB.pdf
• file:///C:/Users/ASUS/Downloads/26-1-49-1-
10-20160325.pdf