English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Abstract

Teaching English for Specific Purposes

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1
CHAPTER
1
is book focuses on the teaching of English for specic purposes (ESP),
which may be a new area within English language teaching (ELT) for you. In
order to contextualize our discussion of ESP, the book starts by highlighting
the key features of English for general purposes (EGP) and by indicating
how ESP diers from it.
English for General Purposes (EGP)
As its name indicates, EGP relates to the mastery of English without any
specic use being prioritized. e target to be reached in EGP is students’
prociency, and the focus lies on the development of their general com-
municative ability.
Several decisions are taken before EGP students enter the classroom.
ese can be made by governments (e.g., curricular guidelines), language
institutes (e.g., identication of the content to be assessed), textbooks (e.g.,
their language foci), teachers (e.g., their decision of what to teach), and
other stakeholders. However, students are not usually consulted; that is, they
are not asked why they are learning English and what exactly they want to
study, for instance. In some contexts, that is understandable: Asking 5-year-
old children how they plan to use English in their lives might be beyond
Introduction

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Teaching English for Specific Purposes
their understanding. e same might not hold true in relation to adults,
forexample.
EGP curricula are frequently determined a priority—even before students
enroll for these courses. Because of their emphasis on general language, EGP
courses prioritize interactional and social texts (e.g., face-to-face conversa-
tions between two friends, phone exchanges to book a hotel), and they
generally focus on the skills of speaking and listening (Hamp-Lyons, 2001).
English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS
● What do you know about ESP?
● How does it differ from other English lessons?
ESP does not aim at improving students’ English prociency indiscrimi-
nately. Instead, students are acknowledged as important stakeholders who
have decided to study this language for particular reasons. Aer these
reasons are mapped, we, as teachers, can help them reach their goals.
e gold standard in ESP is to allow students to use English to fulll
their needs (e.g., read a manual, write a dissertation, listen to a lecture,
present a sales pitch). For example, there is little point in teaching writing to
bus drivers in an ESP course. For these professionals, the skills of listening
and speaking are probably the most important ones since they will have to
interact with passengers (e.g., charge the fare), colleagues (e.g., negotiate
their schedule), and police ocers (e.g., ask for directions if they come
across road diversions).
ESP curricula cannot be predetermined in a social/educational vacuum;
they need to be prepared in response to specic contextual factors. e
texts to be used in ESP courses are likely to dier widely even when the
development of the same skill is being targeted. For instance, ESP writing
courses vary depending on the target students: Accountants might need to
study nancial reports, journalists will need to learn about news stories, and
lexicographers should specialize in the writing of dictionary entries. In sum,
the texts to be used in ESP should relate to the tasks that the students have to
undertake in their daily routines.

Introduction
3
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS
Think of an ESP course that you have taken or taught, and consider
the following questions.
● What was its overall objective?
● Which skills were emphasized in the course?
● Which (spoken/written) texts were used?
● To what extent did the pedagogical decisions made match your
or your students’ needs?
Types of ESP
e specic purposes in ESP are generally related to either one’s profession
or one’s academic studies (Dudley-Evans, 2001; Spiro, 2013). e former is
referred to as English for occupational purposes (EOP; e.g., English for call
center operators, English for bank tellers, English for servers), and the latter
is termed English for academic purposes (EAP; e.g., pre- and in-sessional
English language support oered at universities where English is the
language of instruction).
In this book, we equate ESP with EOP; our discussion centers on the
English to be taught so that our students can perform their jobs. ere are
two reasons for this. First, although EAP is a type of ESP (i.e., the academic
purposes being one of the possible special purposes), it has developed as a
eld of its own. Second, there already is a volume on EAP in this book series
(see Kostka & Olmstead-Wang, 2015), which is relevant to those working
with university-level students or with students who are planning to join/
return to university.
Even if an occupation is specied, there will never be a single ESP
course suitable to all professionals in that area. Figure 1 illustrates this in
relation to ESP courses in legal English. All of the courses presented in
Figure 1 relate to one another, but they dier in their degree of specicity.
For example, an ESP course on legal English would not only focus on the
needs of solicitors but also have to cater for judges, barristers, attorneys
general, directors of public prosecutions, and so on. An ESP course for
novice solicitors (i.e., those entering the profession) would dier from one

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Teaching English for Specific Purposes
for students who already have considerable professional experience. In short,
ESP courses can vary in their degree ofspecialism.
Teachers’ and Students’ Roles in ESP
While ESP teachers may have some understanding of the elds in which
their students work, these teachers do not have to be knowledgeable in all of
these elds. A degree in law or medicine is not required of teachers in ESP
courses for lawyers or doctors.
In ESP, teachers’ and students’ roles are dierent but complementary.
Teachers are the language education specialists; they know (about) English
in addition to having pedagogical skills. Students, on the other hand, have
some knowledge of their professional eld (generally in their rst language)
and usually have a real motivation to learn the language (e.g., communicate
with clients, read a manual, be promoted). It is not possible to generalize,
however, whether they know English. Liu and Berger (2015) state that ESP
students typically have an intermediate or advanced knowledge of English,
but this is not always the case. We have been involved in the development of
ESP courses where the target students—airline mechanics and bus drivers—
had very basic knowledge of English (if any).
Given these proles, a truly symbiotic relationship can be established
in ESP courses. Teachers can learn with their students more about the
latter’s professional practices, while students can learn how to use English
successfully at their workplaces. ESP can therefore be seen as a collaborative
partnership where there is a real information gap and a communication
need between teachers and students.
Figure 1: From General to Specific ESP Courses

Introduction
5
Materials in EGP and ESP Courses
One key dierence between published EGP and ESP materials is that the
former would generally be part of a textbook series while the latter would
commonly be gathered in a single textbook. is relates to typical course
length: EGP courses last longer than ESP courses. e brief duration of the
latter relates to the pressures from the eld where the students work—for
example, they might need to learn English as soon as possible to be able to
get their jobs done, and/or the course might be funded by the employer, who
does not want to spend too much money on it.
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS
Table 1 indicates the contents from the first two units of two
textbooks. Study the table carefully and try to answer the following
questions.
● Can you identify the EGP and the ESP book?
● Given our discussion so far, how do you justify your answers?
Table 1. Contents From Two Textbooks
Book A B
Reference Gomm & Hird (2001, p. 7) MacKenzie (2008, p. 4)
Unit 1 2 1 2
Topic “Identity” “Taste” “The organization
of the financial
industry”
“Telephoning”
Skills
Speaking ● “Recognising
famous people”
● “Discussing what
gives you your
identity”
● “Discussing an
ambiguous situation
& photographs”
● “A telephone
conversation”
● “Anecdote: talking
about your job,
home town or
family”
● “If you were a
food . . .”
● “Talking
about food
associations”
● “Discussing
good taste”
● “Game:
expanding
sentences”
● “Anecdote:
describing
your favourite
restaurant”
● “Role play: Bank
account terms
and conditions”
● “Role plays:
Arranging
meetings,
Asking for
information”
continued on next page

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Teaching English for Specific Purposes
Table 1. (continued)
Book A B
Skills (continued)
Listening ● “People describing
what gives them
their identity”
● “Song: My Girl by
Madness”
● “Boyfriend &
girlfriend arguing on
the telephone”
● “People talking
about the food
they associate
with certain
situations”
● “People
describing food
experiences
abroad”
● “Friends
discussing
good taste”
● “The
development
of the financial
industry; Going
international”
● “Arranging
meetings;
Handling
information”
Reading ● “Extracts from
Men Are From
Mars, Women Are
From Venus by
John Gray”
● “A case of mistaken
identity”
● “Article: a
restaurant
review”
● “Regulation and
deregulation”
Writing ● “Writing about
another student in
the class”
● “Writing a
restaurant
review”
Systems
Vocabulary ● “Vocabulary of
personal values”
● “Word building”
● “Taste & its
collocations”
● “Key vocabulary
of banking
products and
services”
Grammar ● “Adverbials: types
and position”
● “Phrasal verbs with
objects”
● “Describing
nouns”
● “Order of
adjectives”
● “Test yourself:
past tenses”
● “Fronting”
● “Permission,
necessity and
prohibition”
Pronunciation ● “Getting angry” ● “Expressing
enthusiasm &
reservations”
● “Expressions
for agreeing &
disagreeing”
● “Pronouncing
the alphabet
and saying
telephone
numbers”

Introduction
7
Even without knowing the book titles (and we hope you did not cheat
by looking up the references!), you probably realized that Book A is an EGP
textbook—in this case, Inside Out (Gomm & Hird, 2001)—while BookB
is an ESP textbook—namely, English for the Financial Sector (MacKenzie,
2008). Several features support our reasoning, some of which are sum-
marized in Table 1.
Table 2 presents just one example of an ESP book. ere is no recipe
for what ESP materials should contain and how they should be organized.
eir contents and structure are informed by the results of needs analysis,
animportant step in ESP design that is discussed in Chapter 2.
Table 2. Summary of Differences Between an EGP Textbook and an
ESPTextbook
EGP ESP
Topics General life (e.g., identity) Specific to the occupation
(e.g., financial industry)
Skills Focus on all four skills Selective emphasis (e.g., writing is
not dealt with in the first two units)
Texts Interactive, social, and informal
(e.g., discussions, telephone
conversations, introductions,
arguments)
Informative (e.g., financial industry
development), transactional
(e.g.,arrangements), and formal
(e.g., professional and customer)
Language
content
General knowledge of English
(e.g., adverbials, order of adjectives)
Key aspects needed for the target
professionals (e.g., words related to
banking products/services)
Activities Games, anecdotes, songs Role-plays
Next Chapters
is introduction focused on the dierences between ESP and EGP to help
you more fully understand the former. e following ve chapters focus
solely on ESP. Chapter 2 introduces you to needs analysis, the rst step in
the development of any ESP course. It details what information you should
gather and how you can do so. Chapter 3 explains the concept of genre and
illustrates how you can engage in genre-based teaching. Consideration is
then given to specialized vocabulary in Chapter 4, which discusses peda-
gogical matters such as what words/expressions need to be learned, how

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Teaching English for Specific Purposes
these can be taught, and how students can develop their lexical knowledge
independently. Chapter 5 deals with corpus linguistics, an area that has been
the center of attention in ESP (cf. A. M. Johns, 2012). Based on real-life
language use, corpus investigations provide ESP teachers with useful pat-
terns to teach in their classes. e sixth and nal chapter briey summarizes
the main topics discussed in this book and indicates how you may develop
your ESP learning in pedagogical and research terms.
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS
As you explore the following chapters, keep asking yourself
whether/how the suggestions presented in the book
● relate to your experience as an English language teacher, and
● can be implemented in your own teaching context.