Alan Waters

English for specific purposes : a learning-centred approach

Thanks Introduction Part I. What is ESP?: 1. The origins of ESP 2. The development of ESP 3. ESP: approach not product Part II. Course Design: 4. Language descriptions 5. Theories of learning 6. Needs analysis 7. Approaches to course design Part III. Application: 8. The syllabus 9. Materials evaluation 10. Materials design 11. Methodology 12. Evaluation Part IV. The Role of the ESP Teacher: 13. Orientation Appendix Bibliography Acknowledgements Index.

Managing Innovation in English Language Education.

Innovation in English language education (ELE) has become a major ‘growth area’ in recent years. At the same time, an ELE innovation management literature has also developed, based on insights from innovation theory and their application, both from outside and within ELE, and concerned with attempting to critically evaluate and inform ELE innovation practice. Thus, using a well-established three-part framework for distinguishing the main stages involved in innovation project management, this review describes and discusses the main features of this body of work. After defining terms and clarifying its scope, it considers what is said about the innovation ‘initiation’ phase, in terms of innovation causes, characteristics and contexts. It then examines conceptualisations of the innovation ‘implementation’ stage, by distinguishing main overall approaches, frameworks for identifying and configuring roles, underlying psychological processes, and the use of evaluation techniques. Lastly, the literature relating to innovation ‘institutionalisation’ stage is analysed. The article concludes by identifying overall trends and areas for further development. In particular, it is argued that ELE innovation work needs to become more informed by many of the concepts and procedures which the ELE innovation management literature contains.

Factors Affecting ELT Reforms The Case of the Philippines Basic Education Curriculum

A number of recent studies, especially within the East Asian region, have chronicled the problems involved in successful implementation of the English language teaching component of large-scale, system-wide educational innovations. This paper reports on the findings of research into the implementation, in both general and ELT-related terms, of another similar recent initiative, the Philippines Basic Education Curriculum (BEC). The data indicate that classroom-level implementation of the BEC has been difficult to achieve, principally because (i) the curriculum design is insufficiently compatible with teaching situation constraints and, (ii) the necessary levels of professional support and instructional materials have not been provided. The data also show that both drawbacks can be traced in the first instance to a shortage of teaching situation and implementation process resources, a phenomenon frequently noted in the other studies and elsewhere. As the literature on curriculum development also indicates, however, such problems occur in both resource-rich as well as resource-poor contexts. The paper therefore concludes by discussing a number of additional possible underlying causes for inappropriate forms of curriculum innovation, with a view to informing directions for further enquiry.

Facilitating follow-up in ELT INSET

There is evidence that ELT INSET does not always result in the desired level of ‘follow-up’, i.e. impact on teachers’ classroom practices. Nevertheless, little research appears to have been carried out concerning how the design of INSET systems affects such outcomes. This paper therefore attempts to throw light on some of the factors involved, using data derived from research into the operation of the Philippines English Language Teaching (PELT) Project INSET system. In order to attempt to facilitate follow-up, this programme took the form of a hybrid, joint course- and school-based model. Trainees’ views on the functioning of the model were elicited via questionnaires and structured discussions. The findings show that the following variables are among those which are important in determining how effectively such an INSET system operates: 1) the nature of its course- based component; 2) the interface between trainees, trainers and school- based ‘ELT managers’; and 3) the form of school-based follow-up activity employed. The data also indicates how these elements might be configured so as to optimize the potential for INSET follow-up to occur.

Communicative Materials Design: Some Basic Principles

This article offers a brief discussion of what we would suggest as a number of basic principles for the design of communicative language teaching materials. These principles have been derived from current theorv and research in language teaching and learning, and from practical experience of designing and using materials with groups of learners attending the Institute for English Language Education at Lancaster.’ We wish to propose and discuss the following principles:

Expertise in Teacher Education: Helping Teachers to Learn

Research and theorising in applied linguistics has long been centrally focused on the learner and the learning process. This is for good reason, of course: only the learner can do the learning, and so is at the heart of the learning process; and the learning process itself, because it can only be investigated indirectly, is a highly complex and frequently unyielding subject of enquiry, and thus demands sustained and multi-faceted study.

Managing Innovation in Language Education: Acourse for ELT Change Agents

As a steady stream of recent papers indicates, ELT curriculum reform projects are not always as successful as they might be. One overall reason for this situation appears to be a failure to adequately take into account concepts and practices from the world of innovation management. This paper describes an attempt to contribute towards ameliorating this problem by detailing the content, activities, learning processes and outcomes of a short in-service training course on managing innovation in language education, delivered ‘on-site’ to a cross-section of change agents involved in a major educational reform initiative currently being undertaken in the Philippines. Data from the course are used to throw light on its value as an innovation management awareness-raising vehicle. Although illustrated in terms of a particular innovation context, the course is felt to be also of potential relevance to similar situations elsewhere.

English for Specific Purposes: What is ESP?

Particulars are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed. (Dr Samuel Johnson: Preface to Shakespeare ) Our concern in this section is to arrive at a workable definition of ESP. But rather than give a straight answer now to the question ‘What is ESP?’, we would prefer to let it gradually emerge as we work through the section. Let us begin instead with a simpler question: ‘Why ESP?’ After all, the English Language world got along well enough without it for many years, so why has ESP become such an important (some might say the most important) part of English language teaching? In the following three chapters we shall briefly survey the factors which led to the emergence of ESP in the late 1960s and the forces, both theoretical and practical, which have shaped its subsequent development. In Section 2 we shall look in greater detail at the elements we outline in this section.

English for Specific Purposes: The role of the ESP teacher

Give us the tools and we will finish the job. (Winston Churchill) Our explorations of the land of ESP are almost complete, and we come in this final section to consider the role of the ESP teacher, in particular, to consider in what ways the ESP teachers lot differs from that of the General English teacher. We have stressed a number of times the need to see ESP within the context of language teaching in general and this applies as much to the role of the teacher as to materials and methodology. Nevertheless, there are important practical ways in which the work of the General English teacher and the ESP teacher differ. We shall conclude our journey by considering two of the most important differences, the one briefly and the other at greater length. Firstly it will be clear from the preceding chapters that the ESP teachers role is one of many parts. Indeed Swales (1985) prefers with some justification to use the term ‘ESP practitioner’ rather than ‘ESP teacher’ in order to reflect this scope. It is likely that in addition to the normal functions of a classroom teacher, the ESP teacher will have to deal with needs analysis, syllabus design, materials writing or adaptation and evaluation. We do not intend to go into this aspect in any further detail: the whole book is a testimony to the range of parts the ESP teacher is called upon to play. The second way in which ESP teaching differs from General English teaching is that the great majority of ESP teachers have not been trained as such.

English for Specific Purposes: The development of ESP

The best laid schemes o’ mice and men Gang aft a-gley. (Robert Burns) From its early beginnings in the 1960s ESP has undergone three main phases of development. It is now in a fourth phase with a fifth phase starting to emerge. We shall describe each of the five phases in greater detail in later chapters, but it will provide a useful perspective to give a brief summary here. It should be pointed out first of all that ESP is not a monolithic universal phenomenon. ESP has developed at different speeds in different countries, and examples of all the approaches we shall describe can be found operating somewhere in the world at the present time. Our summary must, therefore, be very general in its focus. It will be noticeable in the following overview that one area of activity has been particularly important in the development of ESP. This is the area usually known as EST (English for Science and Technology). Swales (1985) in fact uses the development of EST to illustrate the development of ESP in general: ‘With one or two exceptions…English for Science and Technology has always set and continues to set the trend in theoretical discussion, in ways of analysing language, and in the variety of actual teaching materials.’ We have not restricted our own illustrations to EST in this book, but we still need to acknowledge, as Swales does, the pre-eminent position of EST in the ESP story.