Tom Hutchinson

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.

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.

English for Specific Purposes: The origins of ESP

We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence. (Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species ) As with most developments in human activity, ESP was not a planned and coherent movement, but rather a phenomenon that grew out of a number of converging trends. These trends have operated in a variety of ways around the world, but we can identify three main reasons common to the emergence of all ESP. The demands of a Brave New World The end of the Second World War in 1945 heralded an age of enormous and unprecedented expansion in scientific, technical and economic activity on an international scale. This expansion created a world unified and dominated by two forces – technology and commerce – which in their relentless progress soon generated a demand for an international language. For various reasons, most notably the economic power of the United States in the post-war world, this role fell to English. The effect was to create a whole new mass of people wanting to learn English, not for the pleasure or prestige of knowing the language, but because English was the key to the international currencies of technology and commerce. Previously the reasons for learning English (or any other language) had not been well defined. A knowledge of a foreign language had been generally regarded as a sign of a well-rounded education, but few had really questioned why it was necessary. Learning a language was, so to speak, its own justification.

English for Specific Purposes: Approaches to course design

They must have the defects of their qualities. (translated from Honore de Balzac: Le Lys dans la Vallee ) Course design is the 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 a particular state of knowledge. In practical terms this entails the use of the theoretical and empirical information available to produce a syllabus, to select, adapt or write materials in accordance with the syllabus, to develop a methodology for teaching those materials and to establish evaluation procedures by which progress towards the specified goals will be measured. So let us assume we have completed our needs analysis and reviewed the theoretical models of learning and language available. We now have to face that crushing question: What do we do with the information we have gathered? Asking questions about learner needs will not of itself design a course. The data must be interpreted. We have got a lot of answers. But when we come to designing our course, we will find yet another series of questions. The data from our needs analysis can help to answer these questions. But care is needed: there is no necessary one-to-one transfer from needs analysis to course design. We have seen already that answers from one area (what learners need) and another (what learners want) may conflict. We must remember that there are external constraints (classroom facilities/time) that will restrict what is possible. There are also our own theoretical views and (not to be discounted) experience of the classroom to take into account.

English for Specific Purposes by Tom Hutchinson

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.

English for Specific Purposes: Frontmatter

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.

English for Specific Purposes: Contents

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.

English for Specific Purposes: Acknowledgements

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.