ESPESP －－ English for Specific Purpose

Winnie ChenTESOL of NCTU

Agenda

BackgroundResearchPracticeDirections

Background

“Need analysis” related to teaching & materials. Def. of ESP:

1. Designed for specific disciplines/professions.

2. Robinson: limited duration + adult learners

3. ESP are taught to intermediated or

advanced learners of Eng, in general.

(Including beginners)

Features of ESP:

1. Learners’ needs.

2. Distinctive methodology.

3. Language skills/discourse/genres.

4. Designed for specific disciplines.

5. Designed for adult learners.

6. Designed for students at all levels.

Background

Classification of ESP:

1. EAP v.s EOP

2. EGAP v.s ESAP / EGBP v.s ESBP

3. ESAP = content-based instruction (USA)

4. Other abbreviations: EST / EVP

Background

Research

Beyond needs analysis

1. Target situation analysis:

(1) Learning situation analysis

Subjectively felt needs v.s Objective needs

(2) Present situation analysis

Learners’ weakness & lacks

(3) Mean analysis

Environment (teaching institution/company)

Text analysis

1. Initial need analysis

Materials production & Lesson planning

Research

2. Genre analysis:

(1) Becoming members of the target

discourse communities.

(2) Early work focused on “moves.” ( i.e. How to structure a text )

(3) Corpora / Phraseological studies. ( i.e. “have been / has been” in cancer

research article)

Research

3. Swales:

(1) Creating a research space (CARS)

model: (p.188) Analyze examples of academic articles

Predict how the introductions are organized

5. New Rhetoric work:

Social and cultural contexts of genres.

Research

PracticeNot a lot of ESP materials.Genre analysis researchers apply their

findings to develop textbooks.

DirectionsGeneral analysis for generating

materials continues.Importance of cross-cultural issues.ESP teachers as “genre doctors.”

Thank you for your time.Thank you for your time.

Discussion Have you ever taken an ESP lessons before? What

do you think of them? If you were an ESP teachers, what advantages of

that lesson will you bring to your class? What should you take into consideration before teaching?

What do you think of the distribution of linguistic and subject-matter instruction? Why?

In your points of view, do you think the ESP courses is more motivated than General English lessons? Please explain.