Chapter 6

Learning English for specific

purposes

This chapter considers ESP from a learning perspective; its focus is

therefore on ESP learners and their characteristics. The chapter also
presents some further discussion on common types of ESP course from a
learning perspective. The following areas are covered:

General features of ESP learning

Different types of EAP
Different types of EBP
Legal English
Medical English
The role of learners

In ESP the learner is at the centre of course design. Typically, courses

emerge from needs analyses conducted with major stakeholders (see
Chapter 2). This chapter seeks to address issues concerning the learning of
ESP that may need to be taken into consideration when designing an ESP
course. It discusses different types of ESP, as learning, attitude and
approach may vary between these.

General features of ESP learning

Table 1.1 presented some of the typical characteristics of EGP and ESP
courses, with a focus on learners. ESP learners are usually adult learners
who have mastery of their first language. Course designers can assume
these students already have preferred learning styles and strategies. ESP
learners in many teaching and learning contexts are also likely to be
motivated with clearly articulated goals. They may already have specialist
knowledge which can be exploited in the course-design process. ESP
learners may also have clearly defined expectations of a given language
course.
In terms of learning ESP, there are three main considerations: level of
experience, the ESP context and variations in communication across fields.
The level of subject or job experience and prior knowledge of the
students will greatly influence the content of the ESP course (Dudley-Evans
& St. John, 1998). For example, in an English for legal purposes course will
the learners have to learn about law, perhaps to qualify as a lawyer, or is the
focus on typical language and communicative patterns used in legal
settings?
A further consideration that features in many ESP courses is that of
academic context. A large proportion of ESP occurs in universities. In this
setting consideration needs to be paid to the subject area – for example,
accounting, which may vary from arts subjects in terms of language needs
and expectations. These issues reflect multiple academic literacies. This is
addressed in more detail in Chapter 13.
The use of language in ESP is central to the notion of identity.
Flowerdew distinguishes between professional and individual identities,
which, he argues, are constructed through writing and speaking in the ESP
domain (Flowerdew, 2011). Professional identity reflects the stylistic
features of a particular profession. For example, professional identity is
reflected in the discourse of managers and junior members of staff in a
given cultural environment. Individual identity refers to the presentation of
self based on the intended perception of others.
ESP learners are often highly motivated. Their purpose for learning
English is very specific and goal-driven. Learners have to achieve a specific
goal – for example, give a presentation in English within a given timeframe.
This means that it is often not necessary for the teacher to devote a lot of
consideration to motivation as is the case in EFL. In EFL the use of songs,
games and fun communicative activities can engage otherwise unmotivated
learners. In ESP such motivating techniques may be viewed by the ESP
student as irrelevant to the goals of learning and, rather than being
embraced enthusiastically, may be resisted. However, there are some
advocates of games within ESP. For example, Alex Case blogs about games
and communicative activities in EAP and has a selection of activities and
worksheets freely available for teachers to use (Case, 2015).
Subject knowledge is the main area which distinguishes ESP learners
from EFL learners. It is often the case that an ESP learner has a much wider
knowledge of the subject than the ESP practitioner. There are a number of
approaches to this dilemma. One approach is to work closely with subject
specialists; this is discussed in Chapter 13, about content-based
methodologies. Another is to use the learners as experts, as is the case in
problem-based learning and case study discussed in Chapter 12, and
students as researchers, as discussed in Chapter 13.

Learning strategies
In any course design attention should be paid to the preferred learning
practices of the learners. Referred to as language-learning strategies, this
area has received great deal of attention over the years in EGP (Oxford,
2011a). Strategies are typically classified into three broad categories:
cognitive strategies relating to actions taken to help with learning, such as
memorising; metacognitive strategies relating to the planning of learning;
and social strategies that utilise others in the learning process. Oxford’s
Strategy inventory for language learning (SILL) is a widely used
instrument for measuring learning strategies (Oxford, 1990). It lists 50
possible strategies which could be used when learning a language. This is a
general strategy inventory which classifies strategies into six categories:
memory, cognitive, compensatory, metacognitive, affective and social; and
as well as general language-learning strategies it investigates skills-specific
strategies. Language-learning-strategy research has also focused on more
specific areas, such as reading (Grabe & Stoller, 2002), writing (Anderson,
2005), listening (Graham et al., 2007), speaking, vocabulary and grammar
(Oxford, 2011b). In ESP learning-strategy research has focused on very
specific areas, such as strategies in ELF communication between domestic
helpers and employers (Kwan & Dunworth, 2016), EAP test-taking
strategies (Yang, 2012) and oral presentation strategies (Chou, 2011).

Task 6.1

Learning strategies

Find a list of language-learning strategies you believe are relevant to a

specific ESP course.

For example, Oxford (1990) or Chou (2011).

How do you think a course designer could include these in a course design?
The following section presents some varieties of ESP and the implications
for teaching and learning.

Types of EAP
EAP occurs in a range of settings often based on the stage of education of
the learners. EAP may be provided before university studies, such as
school-based EAP, university-entry-examination training, pre-sessional and
foundation courses. Once a learner is enrolled on a university course, in-
sessional EAP may be provided. Examples of the types of EAP course are
explained in more detail below.

Reflection 6.1

Types of EAP

What types of EAP course are you familiar with?

What are the major considerations in developing a course for these types of
EAP?

Foundation EAP courses

Foundation courses are aimed at upper high-school students and comprise

subject and language instruction. Typically, students attend full-time
courses. Foundation courses often replace traditional entry requirements for
undergraduate courses. Such courses are often referred to as direct-entry
courses. They may be delivered in the student’s home country or in the
intended country of study or a combination of the two. Some Western
universities have set up training centres in the home country to do this.

Pre-sessional EAP courses

Pre-sessional courses tend to be EGAP, as the classes are inevitably

heterogeneous, with students from different disciplines in one class. Full-
fee-paying international students are often required to enrol in full-time
language courses prior to academic study. For example, most large
universities in the UK offer pre-sessional English courses that last one or
more months prior to the beginning of academic courses. These may be
voluntary but more commonly they are mandated, often based on English-
exam results. The motivation for this provision is not necessarily driven by
the need to enhance the student university experience, as such courses
generate much needed funding for the university. Aside from this, there are
other problems inherent in the pre-sessional model. In the UK, for example,
there is a large demand for short-contract EAP teachers in the two months
prior to university admission in October – so universities need to recruit
quite large numbers of teachers for just one or two months. This obviously
dilutes the quality of the EAP teachers employed, as many may have no
EAP or even EFL experience. While this a good opportunity for aspiring
EAP teachers to acquire good experience, it obviously can have an effect on
the quality of the EAP provision.
The rationale behind EGAP is transfer. It is assumed that by learning
general EAP skills and language, knowledge can be applied (transferred) to
a range of more specific communicative situations. James (2014) reviewed
studies in this area and found evidence to support transfer to a certain
degree from EAP courses to subject courses. He examined a wide range of
studies on different areas of transfer – for example, on the quality of student
work. However, his review suggested, and it is generally believed, that the
more specific an EAP course is the more effective it is likely to be (Gillett,
2014).

In-sessional courses

In-sessional EAP is often provided to support students while they are

engaged in their academic study. These courses take various forms. Courses
may be provided based on diagnostic language tests, such as the Diagnostic
English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) at the University of
Auckland (University of Auckland, 2015; Elder, 2003) and the Measuring
the Academic Skills of University Students procedure (MASUS) at the
University of Sydney (Bonanno & Jones, 2007). These tests assess student
deficiencies in academic communication, with an emphasis on reading and
writing. Based on the results of these tests, students can enrol on targeted
EAP courses. These courses may be voluntary, as is the case with MASUS,
or compulsory, as is the case with DELNA. These courses tend not to be for
credit.
In the MASUS procedure students are typically set an academic writing
task – for example, to write a short essay about a given topic based on set
texts. These are then assessed using assessment grids comprising analytical
descriptors. These grids come in forms that can be used by subject tutors or
literacy experts, depending on the type of provision. An example of a
typical grid used by literacy experts is presented in Table 6.1.

Task 6.2
Using the MASUS

Decide how you can best use MASUS diagnostic assessment sheet (Table
6.1) with a group of in-sessional EAP students.

Decide on the target group of learners and target communicative situations

within their disciplines.

Decide what action could be taken informed by the results provided on this
form. How could you make the diagnostic form and task more relevant to a
specific group of EAP learners you are familiar with?

Another type of EAP course in university settings is an EAP course for

credit. This may be compulsory for all students, including native English
speakers – for example, core English-composition classes mandated by
many US universities (Tardy & Jwa, 2016) – or may be elective, as is the
case with English in academic settings in Course 5 in Part 3.
Table 6.1 MASUS diagnostic assessment sheet
Types of business English
When looking at business English, a distinction can be made between EBP
and EOP. While, strictly speaking, they may fall under the umbrella term
‘EOP’, the term ‘EBP’ is widespread and often functions as a discipline in
its own right. Like EAP, EBP has various forms, and three main types will
be addressed here: independent examination courses, academic EBP and
job-experienced EBP.

Task 6.3

Types of business-English course

What do you think are the major differences and similarities between the
following types of course?

Business English Certificate (BEC) courses

English for an MBA
English for sales executives in a company
One-to-one EBP for a senior manager in a company

Comment on typical settings, typical students, the role of needs analysis

and implications for course design.

Business-English examination courses

Business-English examination courses are based on the usefulness of a

knowledge of English for business, regardless of whether the user intends to
have a career in business. Cambridge examinations offer three Business
English Certificates (BEC) targeting different levels: BEC preliminary,
which corresponds to the Common European Framework of Reference
(CEFR) B1; BEC Vantage, which corresponds to CEFR B2; and BEC
Higher, which corresponds to CEFR C1 (Cambridge English Business
Certificates, online). These courses are often offered in senior high schools,
private language schools or at an undergraduate level. The qualifications are
very popular in Chinese universities.

University-level business English

The second type of business English occurs in universities and may be at an

undergraduate or graduate level – for example, English for MBA students.
With this type of course, students need to learn about academic English to
fulfil their course requirements, which may include typical academic
essays. They also need to know about communication in real-world
business communication.

Business English for professional purposes

The last type of business-English course is for job-experienced learners.

Such courses may be conducted in the workplace and are based on
contextually relevant needs. They are typically tailored to specific groups.
The group may share knowledge of the workplace and professional practice
– for example, in a manufacturing company – but may be very different in
terms of job level and English proficiency. This has implications for course
design. A special brand of EBP is the one-to-one course, usually provided
for senior company staff.
English for occupational purposes
We can distinguish between academic EOP and EOP for job-experienced
learners. In academic EOP the learner needs to acquire expert knowledge
from the discipline but also needs to be able to communicate in an academic
setting. In workplace settings provisions for job-experienced EOP students
are the same as those discussed for business English for professional
purposes. Within EOP there are many specialised divisions, such as English
for legal purposes, English for medicine, English for science and
technology and English for engineering. Some of these are discussed below.

English for legal purposes

In learning legal English there are many distinctions and constraints. Legal
English is something everyone who studies the law needs to master,
regardless of whether English is their first or additional language. Northcott
(2013) claims that legal English is a particularly specialised branch of ESP
that poses many problems for non-legal experts. It might be argued that
teachers of ELP should be experts in law as well as language experts.
However, in reality, few ESP practitioners are expert in both areas
(Northcott & Brown, 2006). In Part 3, Course 3, Northcott’s English for
lawyers is an example of a legal English course for job-experienced
students.

English for medical purposes

Medical English has a similar distinction concerning whether it is practice-

focused or academically focused. The skills required for medical
communication are varied. Students need to be able to access and
communicate medical knowledge, which tends to be very formal and
technical. They also need to communicate with patients using an
appropriate bedside manner, which necessitates mastery of informal
colloquial language. Further, medical English may be subdivided into
specialisms such as anatomy, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing (Ferguson,
2013). In Part 3, Course 2, Bosher’s English for cross-cultural nursing
focuses on English for nurses.

Learner issues in ESP

There are many differences between learners in EFL and ESP. To start with,
EFL learners in a school setting must attend class, while ESP learners often
attend voluntarily. Compulsory attendance has its own problems where
learners may see a lack of relevance or may not be interested in learning
English. In ESP there may be a tension between subject and language that
may influence the quality of engagement. For example, in EAP learners
may attend a class because of perceived weaknesses in their English.
However, this deficiency will undoubtedly reflect a difficulty with
academic work in general. What this means is that the most at-risk students
have the least time to devote to language studies and may attend classes
sporadically and not do prescribed tasks. From an EOP perspective, on-site
ESP is notoriously difficult to implement. As learners are in their workplace
it is very easy to be distracted by work duties and again the ESP course
takes a lower priority. These issues and how to minimise them must
considered in course design.
The role of the learner in ESP
In ESP learners are more likely to play an active role in course design than
in regular EGP classes. ESP learners may have a clear idea of their current
and future needs. They often have greater knowledge of the subject area and
may have a much wider subject-specific vocabulary. It is also likely that
they will be able to access specialist texts – for example, lectures and
seminars in EAP. For this reason, it is sensible to utilise learners’ expertise
as much as possible in designing the ESP course.

Reflection 6.2

The role of learners in ESP course design

What is your experience in designing ESP/EFL courses?

As a language learner do you have any experience with ESP/EFL course

input?

What role do you think the ESP learners should play in the course-design
procedure?

How much influence do you think learners should have on the course
content?

Reflect on your experience as a teacher and as a language learner.

In its strongest form a learner-centred approach to course design is

informed by a process syllabus which sees courses negotiated between
learners and teachers in contrast to the usual approach to course design,
which sees the syllabus framework in place before the course commences.
In a negotiated syllabus the responsibility for course content is shared, thus
empowering students (Breen & Littlejohn, 2000). Such syllabuses are more
appropriate in certain settings, such as with heterogeneous groups, where no
materials are available and where there is little shared knowledge between
learners and the teacher. These types of syllabus are challenging to
implement from a practical point of view because of the absence of
planning and structure. It is particularly difficult for teachers who generally
prefer a course outline prior to the beginning of the course. For these
reasons, they are rarely implemented.
In a lot of approaches to ESP course design the learner plays a central
role. For example, in Woodrow’s course English in academic settings (Part
3, Course 5) the notion of students as researchers (Johns, 1997) is applied to
an in-sessional, graduate EAP course. This approach sees the learner as a
researcher investigating the communicative needs and norms of his or her
own discourse community. In Maggie Charles’ course Writing in your field
with corpora (Part 3, Course 7) students are trained to generate and analyse
personal subject-specific corpora.

Summary
This chapter has focused on the learner and learning in ESP. It has
discussed the role of learning strategies and provided links to ESP strategy
research. It has also presented some types of ESP from a learning
perspective. These were linked to sample courses in Part 3.

Further reading
For comprehensive coverage of EAP, Hyland and Shaw (2016) is an
excellent resource. The volume presents a range of types of EAP and each
chapter has excellent links to further research.

Paltridge and Starfield’s 2013 edited volume includes chapters on a range of

research into types of ESP and EOP.

A good resource for learning strategies is Oxford (2011b). While this refers
to EGP, many of the issues are relevant to ESP. The book is an updated
view on researching and teaching learning strategies.

References
Anderson, N. J. (2005). L2 learning strategies. In E. Hinkel (Ed.),
Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning
(pp. 757–771). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Bonanno, H., & Jones, J. (2007). The MASUS procedure: Measuring

the academic skills of university students. A diagnostic
assessment. Learning Centre, University of Sydney. Retrieved 2
March 2017 from
http://sydney.edu.au/stuserv/documents/learning_centre/MASUS.
pdf.

Breen, M., & Littlejohn, A. (2000). Classroom decision-making:

Negotiation and process syllabuses in practice. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge English Business Certificates. (online). Retrieved 2 March
2017 from www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/business-
certificates/.

Case, A. (2015). EAP games and worksheets. Retrieved 2 March 2017

from https://tefltastic.wordpress.com/worksheets/eap/.

Chou, M.-h. (2011). The influence of learner strategies on oral

presentations: A comparison between group and individual
performance. English for Specific Purposes, 30(4), 272–285.

Dudley-Evans, T., & St. John, M. (1998). Developments in English for

specific purposes: A multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Elder, C. (2003). The DELNA initiative at the University of Auckland.

TESOLANZ Newsletter, 12, 15–16.

Ferguson, G. (2013). English for medical purposes. In B. Paltridge &

S. Starfield (Eds.), Handbook of English for specific purposes
(pp. 243–262). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Flowerdew, J. (2011). Action, content and identity in applied genre

analysis for ESP. Language Teaching, 44, 516–528.

Gillett, A. (2014). Does EAP work? A guide for students in higher

education. Retrieved 2 March 2017 from www.uefap.net/blog/?
p=440.

Grabe, W., & Stoller, F. (2002). Teaching and researching reading.

Harlow: Pearson.
Graham, S., Macaro, E. & Vanderplank, R. (2007). A review of
listening strategies: Focus on sources of knowledge and on
success. In A. D. Cohen & E. Macaro (Eds.), Language learner
strategies: 30 years of research and practice (pp. 165–185).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hyland, K., & Shaw, P. (2016). The Routledge handbook of English for
academic purposes. London: Routledge.

James, M. (2014). Learning transfer in English-for-academic-purposes

contexts: A systematic review of research. Journal of English for
Academic Purposes, 14, 1–13.

Johns, A. M. (1997). Text role and context. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Kwan, N., & Dunworth, K. (2016). English as a lingua franca

communication between domestic helpers and employers in Hong
Kong: A study of pragmatic strategies. English for Specific
Purposes 43, 13–24.

Northcott, J. (2013). Legal English. In B. Paltridge & S. Starfield

(Eds.), Handbook of English for specific purposes (pp. 213–226).
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Northcott, J., & Brown, G. (2006). Legal translator training:

Partnership between teachers of English for legal purposes and
legal specialists. English for Specific Purposes, 25(3), 358–375.

Oxford, R. L. (1990). What every teacher should know. New York:

Newbury House.
Oxford, R. L. (2011a). Strategies for learning a second or foreign
language: A timeline. Language Teaching, 44(2), 167–180.

Oxford, R. L. (2011b). Teaching and researching language learning

strategies. Harlow: Longman-Pearson.

Paltridge, B., & Starfield, S. (Eds.) (2013). Handbook of English for

specific purposes. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Tardy, C. M., & Jwa, S. (2016). Composition studies and EAP. In K.

Hyland & P. Shaw (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of English for
academic purposes (pp. 56–68). Abingdon: Routledge.

University of Auckland. (2015). Diagnostic English Language Needs

Assessment (DELNA). Retrieved 2 March 2017 from
www.delna.auckland.ac.nz/en.html.

Yang, H.-C. (2012). Modeling the relationships between test-taking

strategies and test performance on a graph-writing task:
Implications for EAP. English for Specific Purposes, 31(3), 174–
187.