ESP Background
- ESP as an area of English Language
Teaching (ELT)

- ESP is part of the ELT towards a more

communicative basis for teaching and
learning.

- ESP may well be applicable to

communicative teaching in other ELT
contexts.
  ESP Background
- ESP as an area of English Language
Teaching (ELT)

- ESP is part of the ELT towards a more

communicative basis for teaching and
learning.

- ESP may well be applicable to

communicative teaching in other ELT
contexts.
 ESP Historical Development
Background
• It is important not to regard ESP as an
area of development separate from the
rest of English Language Teaching (ELT).

•It is part of the move within the ELT

sphere towards a more communicative
basis for teaching and learning.
Before 1960s:
-Written texts followed by explanation of
vocabulary items, comprehension questions and
language exercises in vocabulary and grammar.
-Texts written for a wide audience, reflecting a
literary rather than a scientific audience.
-The text was as checks to make sure that the
learner had understood the content.
- Grammar practice was based on isolated
sentences.
Since 1960: (Herbert 1965)
• Written texts attempted to ‘familiarize the
foreign student with the kind of writing, reading
of scientific and technical literature’ (Herbert
1965).
•Scientific statements in the form of substitution
tables were presented for practice by student.
•Scientific English can be taught through a
general English structural syllabus with scientific
vocabulary.
• Certain linguistic and scientific notions can be
expressed in a variety of structural forms, and
under the appropriate notion.
Widdowson (1978) distinguishes
between ‘usage’, i.e. language viewed as
isolated items of grammatical structure,
and ‘use’, in the sense of language used
to express ideas through a set of
theoretical acts.
The Focus Series (1978) tries to help the
science student tackle the sort of texts he
will have to read and write in the course of
his studies.
More recently:
- lists of grammatical items had been
replaced by lists of functions, and there
was little agreement between grammar
and functions.
- ESP may well be applicable to
communicative teaching in other ELT
contexts.
-
 It will be useful to look at its
development since the 1960s
The format typical of this approach
consisted of a selection of written texts
followed by explanation of vocabulary
items, comprehension questions and
language exercises in vocabulary and
grammar.
Texts were drawn from a wide variety of
fields and written for a wide audience.
The texts were written was often
inappropriate, reflecting a literary rather
than a scientific audience.

Learners were not taught to develop

strategies for reading; Comprehension
questions following the text acted merely
as checks to make sure that the learner
had understood the content.
•Grammar practice was based on isolated
sentences, and exercises consisted of
traditional drills with the addition of
vocabulary items drawn from the relevant
subject areas.
Another early approach, also based on
written texts, attempted to ‘familiarize the
foreign student with the kind of writing
and kind of statements he is likely to find
in his reading of scientific and technical
literature’ (Herbert 1965).
Scientific statements in the form of
substitution tables were presented for
practice by student.
A number of these presentations were
structurally-based and differed little from
structuralist grammar teaching, Herbert’s
approach does mark a move away from
the “This is a thermometer” type of
approach, the idea that scientific English
can be taught through a general English
structural syllabus with an overlay of
scientific vocabulary.
He shows that certain linguistic and
scientific notions can be expressed in a
variety of structural forms, and he groups
these forms together under the
appropriate notion.
 More recently, some of the earlier work
on functions has been criticized on the
grounds that lists of grammatical items
had simply been replaced by lists of
functions, that functions were difficult to
identify and too numerous to be useful.

This has resulted in more concern not

much with isolated functions but with
larger ‘chunks’ or stretches of language
and the way in which a writer or speaker
composes these chunks and a reader or
listener makes sense of them.
 Fluent readers are able to pick up clues
that help them understand the writer’s
train of thought, and anticipate or predict
what the writer is going to say next.

The course is designed and based on a

functional analysis of the language a
learner needs and the development of
related communicative abilities (reading,
writing, listening, speaking in an
appropriate balance and in suitable
contexts).
 Factors influencing ESP teaching and
learning

Teachers may not have to design

syllabus themselves, it is important that
they should be aware of the factors that
affect the course they have to teach.

Many teachers now write their own

materials; others have to select
appropriate material from wide range on
offer: both groups will need to consider
some or all of the points below.
 The Role of English in the community

ESP programs are these decisions may

restrict or widen the role, and hence the
use of English within the community.

Often the indirect result of political

decisions made at governmental level
about the role of English within the
country in which the learner is studying.
 In some areas, English is used as a
medium of communication in business,
government and education whereas, in
the case of the latter it plays a more
restricted role as a subject on the school
curriculum and as a medium providing
access to technology and science, often
through collaboration with British or
American experts stationed locally.
Such differences have considerable
impact on ESP programs since the
students’ knowledge of English and their
awareness of their need for the language
will vary according to their exposure and
familiarity with English and its usefulness
to them.
 The Role of English in the institution
Program objectives may vary according to
whether the students are studying in an
institution where English is the medium of
instruction or in one where English is
simply an additional subject on the
curriculum.
In the former situation the students may
well see the need for a study-skills
approach to English since it can be
demonstrated that they need the
language to study other subjects on the
curriculum.
 In the later situation, the need may not
be so obvious and the study of English
may have to compete, in terms of time
and commitment from the students, with
other subjects.
This can happen in cases where the
decision to have an English program at
tertiary level is taken by administrators
because it is regarded as essential for
achievement in chemistry or physics.
The real situation, however, may be
different. Students may not need to read
any textbooks in English but may be able
to gain the subject qualification by
referring to lecture notes and handouts
written in the first language.
 The Learner
A.      Age

•The older a learner is, the more likely he

is to have his own definite ideas on why
he is learning English.
• Many ESP learners are adults.
 B. Level
• The balance between the linguistic and
the conceptual level of the learner is
perhaps more evident in ESP program
than in General English.
• The learner may be a trained scientist
or technocrat able to operate within his
field in his own language but not in
English.
• The teacher’s task here is to teach
language, but the text he chooses must
be significant to the student in their
content.
•This presents problems to the teacher
who may be insecure or lacking in special
knowledge when faced with special texts.
• For someone who has left secondary
school and is now returning to or
continuing his studies of English, the utility
of learning English is likely to be more
apparent.
•It is a question of matching the needs of
the learner as he sees them with his
needs as perceived by his teacher.
•There is likely to be more agreement on
needs between teacher and student at
adult level since the purposes are more
clearly defined.

• The learner may be lacking in linguistic

skills and the ways of thinking appropriate
to his particular discipline.
• The teacher’s role here is inevitably to
teach both language and content, with or
without the cooperation of specialist
subject teachers.
 Motivation
•instrumental motivation (where English is
seen as a means to achieving some
practical or professional purpose).
•integrative motivation (where the learner
identifies with the social or cultural
aspects of learning English).

With high motivation a learner is much

more likely to succeed.
• The chances of successful language
learning are increased if we can find out a
student’s motivation for learning English
and match the content of the course to
this motivation.
• If a course is designed to match a given
motivation then the student will feel
encouraged and his motivation is likely to
remain higher.
It is generally assumed that ESP
programs, by their nature, tend to
emphasize the instrumental aspects of a
student’s motivation.
 Attitudes to learning
• Attitudes to an ESP course may be
influenced by a student’s previous learning
of English.
• Where this learning has not been
successful, there may be a negative
feeling towards continuing something
which in the past has connotations of
failure.
• Recognition of these negative feelings
have led writers towards the development
of material which is sufficiently different
from the type of learning experience the
student has had in the past to motivate
him and enable him to overcome his initial
reluctance to study English.
•This development has expressed itself in
the form of texts more closely linked to the
skills required by the student and by a
functional rather strictly structural
approach.
New developments imply new materials
and methodologies, and these affect the
leaner as well as the teacher. The learner
may have entirely different attitudes to
learning and the acquisition of knowledge
from those often implicit in an ESP course.
                   Linguistic
Aspects
• What sort of English will the learner
need?
• What is his purpose in learning?
• How specific is his purpose?
These questions can be answered by
looking at various aspects of the learning
situation and the language to be learnt by
the student.
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.
 The origins of ESP
• The demands of a Brave New World
• 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 where a demand for an
international language is generated.
•Most notably the economic power of the
United States in the post-war world, this
role fell to English.
• A mass of people wants to learn English,
because English was the key to the
international currencies of technology and
commerce.

• As English became the accepted

international language of technology and
commerce, it created a new generation of
learners who knew specifically why they
were learning a language.
 A revolution in linguistics
As the demand was growing for English
courses tailored to specific needs,
influential new ideas began to emerge in
the study of language.
Traditionally the aim of linguistics had
been to describe the rules of English
usage, that is the grammar.
The new studies shifted attention away
from defining the formal features of
language usage to discovering the ways in
which language is actually used in real
communication.
One finding of this research was that
language we speak and write varies
considerably, and in a number of different
ways, from one context to another.
In English language teaching this gave
rise to the view that there are important
differences between the English of
commerce and that of engineering.
These ideas married up naturally with the
development of English courses for
specific groups of learners.
 The idea was simple: if language varies
from one situation of use to another, it
should be possible to determine the
features of specific situations and then
make these features the basis of the
learners’ course.
The view gained ground that the
English needed by a particular group of
learners could be identified by analyzing
linguistic characteristics of their specialist
area of work or study.
 The guiding principle of ESP
“Tell me what you need English for and I
will tell you the English that you need”.
 Focus on the learner
New development in educational
psychology also contributed to the rise of
ESP, by emphasizing the central
importance of the learners and their
attitudes to learning.
Learners were seen to have different
needs and interests, which would have an
important influence on their motivation to
learn and therefore on the effectiveness of
their learning.
The development of courses in which
‘relevance’ to the learners’ their needs
would improve the learners’ motivation
and thereby make learning better and
needs and interests was paramount.
The standard way of achieving this was to
take texts from the learners’ specialist area
– texts about Biology for Biology students
etc.
The growth of ESP, then, was brought
about by a combination of three important
factors.
• The expansion of demand for English to
suit particular needs.
• The developments in the fields of
linguistics.
• and educational psychology.
All three factors seemed to point towards
the need for increased specialization in
language learning.
a) The concept of special language:
register analysis
• Teaching materials take the linguistic
features as their syllabus.
• There was an academic interest in the
nature of registers of English, but the main
motive behind register analysis was the
pedagogic one of making the ESP course
more relevant to the learners’ needs.
• The aim was to produce a syllabus which
gave high priority to the language forms
students would meet in their science
studies and in turn would give low priority
to forms they would not meet.
 some of the language forms such as
compound nouns, passives, conditionals,
modal verbs… are neglected in school
textbooks but commonly found in Science
texts.
b) Beyond the sentence: rhetorical or
discourse analysis
•There were serious flaws in the register
analysis – based syllabus, but, as it
happened, register analysis as a research
procedure was rapidly overtaken by
developments in the world of linguistics.
• Whereas in the first stage of its
development, ESP had focused on
language at the sentence level.
• The second phase of development
shifted attention to the level above the
sentence, as ESP became closely
involved with the emerging field of
discourse or rhetorical analysis.
• Register analysis had focused on
sentence grammar, but now attention
shifted to understanding how sentences
were combined in discourse to producing
meaning.
 c) Target situation analysis
• The aim of the target situation analysis is
to take the existing knowledge and set it
on a more scientific basis, by establishing
procedures for relating language analysis
more closely to learner’s reasons for
learning.
• The purpose of an ESP course is to
enable learners to function adequately in a
target situation, that is, the situation in
which the learners will use the language
they are learning.
• The ESP course design process should
proceed by first identifying the target
situation and then carrying out a rigorous
analysis of the linguistic features of the
situation.
•The identified features will form the
syllabus of the ESP course. This process is
usually known as ‘need analysis’.
•The target situation analysis stage
marked a certain ‘coming of age’ for ESP.
What had previously been done very
much in a piecemeal way, was now
systematized and learner need was
apparently placed at the center of the
course design process.
Skills and strategies
•The fourth stage of ESP has seen an
attempt to look below the surface and to
consider not the language itself but
thinking processes that underlie language
use.
• The principal idea behind the skills-
centred approach is that underlying all
language use there are common reasoning
and interpreting processes, which,
regardless of the surface forms, enable us
to extract meaning from discourse.
• The focus should rather be on the
underlying interpretive strategies, which
enable the learner to cope with the
surface forms (guessing the meaning of
words from context, using visual layout to
determine the type of text, exploiting
cognates - i.e. words which are similar in
the mother tongue and the target
language).
 A learning – centred approach
In outlining the origins of ESP, we
identified three forces, which we might
characterize as need, new ideas about
language and new ideas about learning.
• They are all based on descriptions of
language use.
• Description is of surface forms, (in the
case of register analysis).
• Underlying processes, (in the skills and
strategies approach).
• Describing what people do with
language.
• In ESP, Learning-centered approach is
concerned not with language use –
although this will help to define the course
objectives, but language learning.

• An approach to ESP must be based on

an understanding of the processes of
language learning.
 5. ESP: approach not product
• It is possible to distinguish ESP courses
by the general nature of the learners’
specialism.
• ESP is just one branch of EFL/ESL,
which are themselves the main branches
of English Language teaching in general.
•ELT, in turn is one variety of the many
possible kinds of language teaching.
But there is more to a tree than is visible
above ground: a tree cannot survive
without roots. The roots which nourish the
tree of ELT are communication and
learning.
 What ESP is not?
• ESP is not a matter of teaching
‘specialized varieties’ of English.
• Language is used for a specific purpose
does not imply that it is a special form of
the language, different in kind from others
forms.
• ESP is not just a matter of Science
words and grammar for scientists, Hotel
words and grammar for Hotel staff and
so on.
• There is much more to communication
than just the surface features that we read
and hear.
•We need to distinguish between
Performance and Competence, (what
people actually do with the language and
the range of knowledge and abilities which
enables them to do it).
• ESP is not different in kind from any other
form of language teaching, in that it should
be based on principles of effective and
efficient learning.
What ESP is not? (cont.)
There is no such thing as an ESP
methodology, merely methodologies that
have been applied in ESP classrooms, but
could just as well have been used in the
learning of any kind of English.
 So ESP must be seen as an approach
not as product. ESP is not a particular kind
of language or methodology, nor does it
consist of a particular type of teaching
material.
Understood properly, it is an approach
to language learning, which is based on
learner need.
The foundation of all ESP is the simple
question: why does this learner need to
learn a foreign language?
 From the question mention above that
will flow a whole host of further questions:
• some of which will relate to the learners
themselves,
• some to the nature of the language the
learners will need to operate,
• some to given learning context.

This whole analysis derives from an initial

identified need on the part of the learner
to learn a language.
ESP, then, is an approach to language
teaching, in which all decisions as to
content and method are based on the
learner’s reason for learning.
 COURSE DESIGN
• ESP is an approach to language teaching
which aims to meet the needs of particular
learners, it means that much of the work
done by ESP teachers is concerned with
designing appropriate courses for various
groups of learners.

• Designing a course is fundamentally a

matter of asking questions in order to
provide a reasoned basis for the
subsequent processes of syllabus design,
materials writing, classroom teaching and
evaluation.
We need to ask a very wide rang of
questions: general and specific,
theoretical and practical. Some of these
questions will be answered by research;
others will rely more on the intuition and
experience of the teacher; yet others will
call on theoretical models.
What we need to know are:
1. Why does the student need to learn?
2. Who is going to be involved in the
process? This will need to cover not just
the student, but all the people who may
have some effect on the process:
teachers, sponsors, inspectors etc.
3. Where is the learning to take place?
What potential does the place provide?
What limitations does it impose?
4. When is the learning to take place?
How much time is available? How will it
be distributed?
5. What does the student need to learn?
What aspects of language will be needed
and how will they be described? What
level of proficiency must be achieved?
What topic areas will need to be covered?
6. How will the learning be achieved?
What learning theory will underlie the
course? What kind of methodology will be
employed?
The distinction between the two elements
of language description and learning
theory: the language description is the way
in which the language system is broken
down and described for the purposes of
learning. Terms such as ‘structural’,
‘functional’, ‘notional’ properly belong to
this area.
Learning theory provides the theoretical
basis for the methodology, by helping us to
understand how people learn. It is also
important to note that theories of learning
are not necessarily confined to how people
learn language, but refer equally to the
learning of any kind of knowledge, for
example how to drive a car. In the area of
learning theories the relevant terms we
shall consider are ‘behaviorist’,
‘cognitive’, ‘affective’.
 Language descriptions

These ideas are drawn from the various

language descriptions that have been
developed by succeeding schools of
thought in linguistics.

There are a number of ways of

describing language available to us. It is
important to understand the main features
of each of these descriptions in order to
consider how they can be used most
appropriately in ESP courses.
 Not all the developments in Linguistics
have had pedagogic applications.

Classical or Traditional Grammar

Descriptions of English and other
languages were based on the grammars
of the classical languages, Greek and
Latin.
These descriptions were based on an
analysis of the role played by each of word
in the sentence.
Languages were described in this way
because the classical languages were case-
based languages where the grammatical
function of each word in the sentence was
made apparent by the use of appropriate
inflections.
 The form of a word would change
according to whether it was a subject,
object, indirect object and so on.
A knowledge of the classical description
can still deepen our knowledge of how
languages operate.
Structural Linguistics

In a structural description the grammar

of the language is described in terms of
syntagmatic structures which carry the
fundamental propositions (statement,
interrogative, negative, imperative etc.)
and notions (time, number, gender etc.
By varying the words within these
structural frameworks, sentences with
different meanings can be generated.
This method of linguistic analysis led in
English language teaching to the
development of the substitution table as a
typical means of explaining grammatical
patterns that are still widely used today.
Transformational Generative Grammar
The structural view of language as a
collection of syntagmatic patterns held
sway until the publication in 1957 of
Syntactic structures by Noam Chomsky.
 Chomsky argued that the structural
description was too superficial, because it
only described the surface structure of the
language, and thus could not explain
relationships of meaning which were quite
clearly there, but which were not realized
in the surface structure.
Chomsky concluded that these
problems arose because language was
being analyzed and described in isolation
from the human mind which produces it.
Chomsky maintained that, if we want to
understand how language works, it cannot
be viewed as a phenomenon in itself. It
must be viewed as a reflection of human
thought patterns.
 Chomsky proposed that there must be
two levels of meaning; a deep level, which
is concerned with the organization of
thoughts and a surface level, where these
thoughts are expressed through the
syntax of the language.
The grammar of a language is not the
surface structures themselves, but the
rules that enable the language user to
generate the surface structures from the
deep level of meaning.
Chomsky’s effect on language teaching
has been more indirect, but no less
important.
Firstly he re-established the idea that
language is rule-governed.
• Secondly, he widened the view of
language to incorporate the relationship
between meaning and form.

For ESP the most important lesson to be

drawn from Chomsky’s work was the
distinction he made between performance
(i.e. the surface structures) and
competence (i.e. the deep level rules).
Chomsky’s own definition of performance
and competence was narrowly based,
being concerned only with syntax.

In ESP we need to describe what people

do with the language (performance) and
discover the competence that enables
them to do it.

A simple way of seeing the distinction

between performance and competence is
in our capacity to understand the meaning
of words we have never met before
In the early stages of its development,
ESP put most emphasis on describing the
performance needed for communication in
the target situation and paid little attention
to the competence underlying it.

Indeed, accustomed as we are to seeing

language and language learning in terms
of performance, it can be difficult to grasp
the importance of the
competence/performance distinction.
Language does not exist for its own sake.
It exists because people do things with it:
they give information; they promise; they
threaten; they make excuses; they seek
information; they classify; they identify;
they report. Language, in other words, can
also be looked at from the point of view of
function, that is, what people do with it

This idea became an important movement

in linguistics with the development of the
concept of ‘communicative competence’
Socio-linguists, such as Dell Hymes,
proposed that competence consists not
just of set of rules for formulating
grammatically correct sentences, but also
a knowledge of ‘when to speak, when
not… what to talk about with whom,
when, where, in what manner
The study of language in use, therefore,
should look not just at syntax, but also at
the other ingredients of communication,
such as: non-verbal communication
(gesture, posture, eye contact etc.), the
medium and channel of communication,
role relationships between the
participants, the topic and purpose of
communication
The concept of communicative
competence has had far-reaching
consequences for ESP. it led to the
language variation and register analysis;
language as function; discourse analysis
 Language Variation and Register
Analysis
The concept of language variation gave
rise to the type of ESP which was based
on register analysis
If language varies according to context,
it was argued, then it should be possible
to identify the kind of language associated
with a specific context, such as an area of
knowledge (social English; medical
English; business English; scientific
English etc.), or an area of use (technical
manuals, academic texts, business
meeting, advertisements, doctor-patient
communication etc.)
 Functional/Notional Grammar
The major offshoot of work into language
as communication which has influenced
ESP has been the functional/notional
concept of language description
The terms ‘functional’ and ‘notional’ are
easily and frequently confused. There is
a difference between them.
•Functions are concerned with social
behavior and represent the intention of
the speaker or writer, for example,
advising, warning, threatening, describing
etc. they can be approximately equated
with the communicative acts that are
carried out through language.
• Notions, on the other hand, reflect the
way in which the human mind thinks. They
are the categories into which the mind and
thereby language divides reality, for
example, time, frequency, duration,
gender, number, location, quantity, quality
etc.
The functional view of language began
to have an influence on language teaching
in the 1970s, largely as a result of the
Council of Europe’s efforts to establish
some kind of equivalence in the syllabus
for learning various languages.
Equivalence was difficult to establish on
formal grounds, since the formal
structures of languages show
considerable variation.
•The student of German, for example, is
likely to have spent a large amount of
time in learning the gender/case endings
of articles, nouns and adjectives.
•The learner of English on the other hand
will not have this problem, but may need
to spend more time on the spelling, the
simple/continuous tense distinction or the
countable/uncountable distinction.
 These variations in the formal features of
language obviously make it difficult to
divide up the learning tasks into units of
equivalent value across the various
languages on the basis of formal grammar.

On notional or functional grounds,

however, some approximate equivalence
can be achieved, since notions and
functions represent the categories of
human thinking and social behavior, which
do not vary across languages.
Thus in the 1970s there was a move from
language syllabus organized on structural
grounds to ones based on functional or
notional criteria.

The move towards functionally based

syllabus has been particularly strong in
the development of ESP, largely on the
pragmatic grounds that the majority of
ESP students have already done a
structurally organized syllabus, probably
at school.
The functional syllabus however, has its
own drawback. It suffers in particular from
a lack of any kind of systematic
conceptual framework, and as such does
not help the learners to organize their
knowledge of the language.

The main problem with the functional

syllabus is not the syllabus itself, but the
fact that it is too often seen as a
replacement for the older structural
syllabus.
A more constructive approach to
describing language in structural or
functional terms to see the two as
complementary, with each supporting and
enriching the other.

The relationship between the two can be

best expressed in the form of this simple
equation: structure + context = function.
 Discourse (Rhetorical) Analysis
This point language had been viewed in
term of sentence.

The emphasis moved to looking at how

meaning is generated between sentences.
This was a logical development of the
functional/notional view of language which
had shown that there is more to meaning
than just the words in the sentence.
The context of the sentence is also
important in creating the meaning.
 The ESP teacher needs to recognize
that the various approaches are different
ways of looking at the same thing. All
communication has a structural level, a
functional level and a discoursal level.

They are not mutually exclusive, but

complementary, and each may have its
place in the ESP course.
 Describing a language for the purposes
of linguistic analysis does not necessarily
carry any implication for language
learning.

The purposes of the linguist and of the

language teacher are not the same.
Describing a language is not the same
as describing what enables someone to
use or learn a language.
 There is a distinction between what a
person does (performance) and what
enables them to do it (competence);
similarly how people use a language with
how people learn it.

The importance of these points can only

be appreciated when we consider the
psychological processes that lie behind
language use and language learning.
 Theories of Learning
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a
day.Teach a man how to fish and you feed
him for a lifetime”Ch.P.
The starting point for all language
teaching should be an understanding of
how people learn.
Learning factors, if considered at all,
are incorporated only after the language
base has been analyzed and systemized.
Yet, language can only be properly
understood as a reflection of human
thought processes.
Language learning is conditioned by the
way in which the mind observes,
organizes and stores information.
The key to successful language learning
and teaching lies not in the analysis of the
nature of language but in understanding
the structure and processes of the mind.

To improve the techniques, methods and

content of language teaching, we must try
and base what we do in the classroom on
sound principles of learning.
To see the importance of each for
language teaching, it is best to consider
the theories relating to language and
learning separately.

As with language descriptions, we shall

describe the main developments in
theories of how learners learn and relate
each to the needs of the ESP learner and
teacher.
Behaviorism: Learning as habit formation
The first coherent theory of learning was
the behaviorist theory based mainly on the
work of Pavlov in the former Soviet Union
and of Skinner in the United States.

This simple but powerful theory said that

learning is a mechanical process of habit
formation and proceeds by means of the
frequent reinforcement of a stimulus-
response sequence.
The simplicity and directness of this theory
had an enormous impact on learning
psychology and on language teaching.
It provided the theoretical underpinning of
the widely used Audiolingual Method of the
1950s and 1960s.
This method, which will be familiar to
many language teachers, laid down a set
of guiding methodological principles,
based firstly on the behaviorist stimulus-
response concept and secondly on an
assumption that foreign language learning
should reflect and imitate the perceived
processes of mother tongue learning.
New language should always be dealt with
in the sequence: hear, speak, read, and
write. Frequent repetition is essential to
effective learning.
 Mentalism: thinking as rule-governed
activity

There was considerable empirical

evidence among language teachers that
the Audiolingual method and its
behaviorist principles did not deliver the
results promised.

• language learners would not comfort to

the behaviorist stereotype.
• they insisted on translating things, asked
for rules of grammar, found repeating
things to a tape recorder boring, and
somehow failed to learn something no
matter how often they repeated it.

The first successful assault on the

behaviorist theory came from Chomsky.
Chomsky tackled behaviorism on the
question of how the mind was able to
transfer what was learnt in one stimulus-
response sequence to other novel
situations.
There was a vague concept of
‘generalization’ in behaviorist theory, but
this was always skated over and never
properly explained.
Chomsky dismissed the generalization
idea as unworkable, because it simply
could not explain how from a finite range
of experience, the human mind was able
to cope with an infinite range of possible
situations.
 Having established thinking as rule-
governed behavior, it is one short step to
the conclusion that learning consists not of
forming habits but of acquiring rules – a
process in which individual experiences
are used by the mind to formulate a
hypothesis.

This hypothesis is then tested and

modified by subsequent experience.
The mind does not just respond to a
stimulus, it uses the individual stimuli in
order to find the underlying pattern or
system. It can use this knowledge of the
system in a novel situation to predict what
is likely to happen, what is an appropriate
to response or whatever.

The mentalist view of the mind as a rule-

seeker led naturally to the next important
stage – the cognitive theory of learning.
 Cognitive code: learners as thinking
beings
Whereas the behaviorist theory of
learning portrayed the learner as a
passive receiver of information, the
cognitive view takes the learner to be an
active processor of information.
Learning and using a rule require
learners to think, that is, to apply their
mental powers in order to distil a workable
generative rule from the mass of data
presented, and then to analyze the
situation where the application of the rule
would be useful or appropriate.
Learning is a process in which the learner
actively tries to make sense of data, and
learning can be said to have taken place
when the learner has managed to impose
some sort of meaningful interpretation or
pattern on the data.
This process may sound complex, but in
simple terms what it means is that we
learn by thinking about and trying to make
sense of what we see, feel and hear.
The basis teaching technique
associated with a cognitive theory of
language learning is the problem-solving
task. In ESP such exercises have often
been modeled on activities associated with
the learners’ subject specialism.
The affective factor: learners as emotional
beings

People think, but they also have

feelings. Human beings always act in
logical and sensible manner.

This attitude affects the way we see

learners – more like machines to be
programmed than people with likes and
dislikes, fears, weaknesses and
prejudices.
They may be learning about machines
and systems, but they still learn as
human beings. Learning, particularly the
learning of a language, is an emotional
experience, and the feelings that the
learning process evokes will have a
crucial bearing on the success or failure
of the learning.

The importance of the emotional factor is

easily seen if we consider the relationship
between the cognitive and affective
aspects of the learner.
 The cognitive theory tells us that
learners will learn when they actively think
about what they are learning.
But this cognitive factor presupposes
the affective factor of motivation.
Before learners can actively think about
something, they must want to think about
it.
The emotional reaction to the learning
experience is the essential foundation for
the initiation of the cognitive process. How
the learning perceived by the learner will
affect what learning, if any will take place.
 The relationship is one of vital
importance to the success between the
cognitive and emotional aspects of
learning of a language learning
experience.
This brings us to a matter which has been
one of the most important elements in the
development of ESP – motivation.
The most influential study of motivation in
language learning Gardner and Lambert’s
study of bilingualism in French speaking
Canada. They identified two forms of
motivation: instrumental and integrative.
 Motivation is a complex and highly
individual matter. There can be no simple
answers to the question: “what motivates
my students?” While recognizing the need
to ask this question, has apparently
assumed that there is a simple answer:
relevance to target needs. ESP, as much
as any good teaching, needs to be
intrinsically motivating. It should satisfy
their needs as learners as well as their
needs as potential target users of the
language. In other words, they should get
satisfaction from the actual experience of
learning, not just from the prospect of
eventually using what they have learnt.
 Learning and Acquisition
Learning is seen as a conscious process,
while acquisition is as unconsciously.
A model for learning
Individual items of knowledge have little
significance on their own. They only
acquire meaning and use when they are
connected into the network of existing
knowledge.
It is the existing network that makes it
possible to construct new connections. So
in the act of acquiring new knowledge it is
the learner’s existing knowledge that
makes it possible to learn new item.
Learning a general rule may take time, but
once it is there, it greatly increases the
potential for further learning.
Learner must recognize where problems
lie and work out strategies for solving
those problems. In the same way the
learner will make better progress by
developing strategies for solving the
learning problems that will arise.
Language is a system. If the learner sees
it as a haphazard set of arbitrary and
capricious obstacles, learning will be
difficult, if not impossible.
Before learning, learner must have some
kind of motivation to do.
With learning, a need to acquire
knowledge is a necessary factor, and the
need is to actually enjoy the process of
acquisition.

As with language descriptions, it is wise to

take an electic approach, taking what is
useful from each theory and trusting also
in the evidence of your own experience as
a teacher.
It is probably there are cognitive, affective
and behaviorist aspect to learning, and
each can be a resource to the ESP
practitioner.

For example, you may choose a

behaviorist approach to the teaching of
pronunciation, a cognitive approach to the
teaching of grammar and use affective
criteria in selecting your texts.
 Need Analysis

(From each according to his abilities, to

each according to his needs. –Karl Marx).
ESP is as an approach to course design
which starts with the question ‘Why do
these learners need to learn English?

This should be the starting question to

any course, General or ESP.
If learners, sponsors and teachers know
why the learners need English, that
awareness will have influence on what will
be acceptable as reasonable content in the
language course and, on the positive side,
what potential can be exploited.
Although it might appear on the surface
that the ESP course is characterized by its
content (Science, Medicine, Commerce,
Tourism etc.), this is in fact, only a
secondary consequence of the primary
matter of being able to readily specify why
the learners need English.
It is not so much the nature of the need
which distinguishes the ESP from the
General Course but rather the awareness of
a need.

ESP approach to course design would

contain needs analysis, since it is the
awareness of a target situation, a need to
communicate in English that distinguishes
the ESP learner from the learner of
General English.
 In the language-centred approach, the
answer to this question would be ‘the
ability to comprehend and/or produce the
linguistic features of the target situation.
We can make a basic distinction between
- ‘target needs (i.e. what the learner
needs to do in the target situation)
- ‘learning’ needs (i.e. what the learner
needs to do in order to learn).
 What are target needs?

‘Target needs’ is more useful to look at

the target situation in terms of
‘necessities, lacks and wants’.
Necessities

Necessity is a need determined by the

demands of the target situation, that is,
what the learner has to know in order to
function effectively in the target situation.
For example, a businessman or woman
might need:
• to understand business letter;
• to communicate effectively at sales
conferences;
• to get the necessary information from
sales catalogues and so on.
 Lacks
We need to know what the learner knows
already, so that we can decide which of the
necessities the learner lacks.
The target proficiency needs to be
matched against the existing proficiency of
the learners.
The gap between the two can be referred
to as the learner’s lacks.
 Wants

Want is as a need does not exist

independent of a person.
It is people who build their images of their
needs on the basis of data relating to
themselves and their environment.
It is believed that it is an awareness of
need that characterizes the ESP situation.
But awareness is a matter of perception,
and perception may vary according to
one’s standpoint. Learners may well have
a clear idea of the ‘necessities’ of the
target situation: they will certainly have a
view as to their ‘lacks’. But it is quite
possible that the learners’ views will
conflict with the perceptions of other
interested parties: course designers,
sponsors, and teachers.
Gathering information about target needs

Questionnaires; interviews; observation;

data collection (gathering texts); informal
consultations with sponsors, learners and
others.

The analysis of target situation needs is in

sense a matter of asking questions about
the target situation and the attitudes
towards that situation of the various
participants in the learning process.
 A target situation analysis framework
• Why is the language needed?
• How will the language be used?

• What will the content areas be?

• Who will the learner use the language

with?
• Where will the language be used?

• When will the language be used?

 Learning Needs
Learning needs refer to knowledge and
abilities that the learners require in order to
be able to perform to the required degree
of competence in the target situation

Learning needs can also be as compass

on the journey of general direction, but
learners must choose their route
according to the conditions of the learning
situation, and the learner’s motivation for
learning.
 Analyzing Learning Needs
1. Why are the learners taking the
course?
• Compulsory or optional;
• Apparent need or not;
• Are status, money, promotion involved?
• What do learners think they will achieve?
• What is their attitude towards the ESP course?
• Do they want to improve their English?
• Do they resent the time they have to spend on
it?
2. How do the learners learn?

• What is their learning background?

• What is their concept of teaching and
learning?
• What methodology will appeal to them?
• What sort of techniques are likely to bore
/ alienate them?
3. What resources are available?

• Number and professional competence of

teachers;
• Attitude of teachers to ESP;
• Teachers’ knowledge of and attitude to
the subject content;
• Materials;
• Aids;
• Opportunities for out-of-class activities.
4. Who are the learners?
• Age / sex / nationality;
• What do they know already about
English?
• What subject knowledge do they have?
•What are their interests?
•What is their socio-cultural background?
•What teaching styles are they used to?
•what is their attitude to English or to the
cultures of the English-speaking world?
5. Where will the ESP course take place?

• Are the surroundings pleasant, dull,

noisy, cold etc?

6. When will the ESP course take place?

• Time of day; every day / once a week;

full-time / part-time; concurrent with need
or pre-need.
 Approaches to Course Design

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 the particular state of
knowledge.
There are probably as many different
approaches to ESP course design as there
are course designers.

We can identify three main types:

• language-centred,
• skills-centred,
• learning-centred.
 Skills-centred course design

A skills-centred approach aims to get

away from the surface performance data
and look at the competence that underlies
the performance, to get the learner
produce or comprehend discourse.
A skills-centred course will present its
learning objectives in terms of both
performance and competence.
The student will be able to catalogue
books written in English.
The students will be able to extract the
gist of a text by skimming through it; to
extract relevant information from the main
parts of a book.
The pragmatic basis for the skills-centred
approach derives from a distinction
between goal-oriented courses and
process-oriented courses.

The process it is concerned with the

process of language use not of language
learning.
 Learning-centred Approach

As teacher we can influence what we

teach, but what learners learn is
determined by the learners alone.
Learning is seen as a process in which the
learners use what knowledge or skills they
have in order to make sense of new
information.
Learning is an internal process, which is
dependent upon the knowledge the
learners already have and their ability and
motivation to use it.
Learning can, and should, be seen in the
context in which it takes place. Learning is
not just a mental process, it is a process
of negotiation between individuals and
society.
Society sets the target of performance (in
the case of ESP) and the individuals must
do their best to get as close to that target
as possible.
 Application
Application will be concerned with the
detailed implementation of the design into
a syllabus, materials, a methodology and
evaluation procedures.

What is syllabus?

A syllabus is a document which says what

will be learned, it can be described as a
statement of what is to be learned.
This kind of syllabus will be most familiar
as the document that is handed down by
ministries or other regulating bodies.
- It states what the successful learner will
know by the end of the course.
- It puts on record the basis on which
success or failure will be evaluated.
- It reflects an assumption to the nature of
language and linguistic performance.
 The organisational syllabus
A syllabus can also state the order in
which it is to be learnt.
The organisational syllabus is most
familiar in the form of the contents pages
of a textbook.
The organizational syllabus is about the
nature of language and of learning, and is
as factors of how people learn.
 The materials syllabus

In writing materials, the author adds more

assumptions about the nature of
language, language learning and
language use.
The author decides the contexts in which
the language will appear, the relative
weightings and integration of skills, the
number and type of exercises to be spent
on any aspect of language, the degree of
recycling or revision.
 The teacher syllabus
The great majority of students in
language learning is through the
mediation of a teacher. The teacher can
influence the clarity, intensity and
frequency of any item, and thereby
affect the image that the learners
receive.
 The classroom syllabus
What is planned and what actually
happens in a lesson are two different
things.
The lesson plan is like the planned route,
but like a planned route it can be affected
by all sorts of conditions along the way.
The classroom is not simply a neutral
channel for the passage of information
from teacher to learner. It is a dynamic,
interactive environment, which affects the
nature both of what is taught and what is
learnt. The classroom thus generates its
own syllabus.
 The learner syllabus

The learners might participate in their

creation to some extent. Syllabus is the
network of knowledge that develops in
learner’s brain and which enables that
learner to comprehend and store the later
knowledge.
 Methodology
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember.
I do and I understand, (Chinese proverb).
Second language learning is a
development process
“Use to learn language, not learn to use”
Only this way can learning take place. The
learner’s existing knowledge is a vital
element in the success or failure of
learning, and the good teacher will try to
establish and exploit what the learners
already know.
 Language learning is an active process
It is not enough for learners just to have
the necessary knowledge to make thing
meaningful, they must also use that
knowledge. It is important to be clear what
we mean by the term ‘active’.
• Psycho-motor activity, that is, the
observable movement of speech organs
or limbs in accordance with signals from
the brain .
• Language processing activity, that is, the
organisation of information into a
meaningful network of knowledge. This
kind of activity is internal and not
observable.
 Language learning is a decision
The process of developing and using a
network of knowledge relies upon a train
of learner decisions:
• What knowledge is new?
• How does it relate to the existing
knowledge?
• What is the underlying pattern?
• Is there a rule of appropriacy here?
• Which bits of information are relevant?
• Which are unimportant?
• Learners must be decision - makers.
 Language learning is not just a matter of
linguistic knowledge
The most fundamental problem of foreign
language learning is the mismatch
between the learners conceptual/
cognitive capacities and the learners’
linguistic level.
In mother tongue learning they develop
together. In the foreign language learning
they are conceptually and cognitively
mature, but linguistically are as an infant.
This is a particular problem in ESP, where
the learners’ knowledge of their subject
specialism may be of a very high level,
while their linguistic knowledge is virtually
nil. Teaching must respect both levels of
the learners’ state.
Language learning is not the learners’
first experience with language
Every foreign language learner is already
communicatively competent in one
language. They do not know the specific
forms, words or some of the concepts of
the target language, but they know what
communication is and how it is used.
Learners’ knowledge of communication
should be actively exploited in foreign
language learning, for example, by getting
students to predict, before reading or
listening.
Learning is an emotional experience

Our concern should develop the positive

emotions as opposed to the negative
ones.
 Language learning is to a large extent
incidental
Learners don’t have to work with
language problems in order to learn
language, but learners can learn language
while they are actually thinking about
something else. The problems to be
solved are not language problems. The
important point is that the problems should
oblige the learners to use language and to
fix the language into the matrix of
knowledge in their minds.
 Language learning is not systematic

We learn by systematizing knowledge, but

the process itself is not systematic.
The learner must create an internal
system; and an external system may help
them.
 Evaluation
In ESP evaluation requirements are
brought into focus by the fact that the ESP
course normally has specified objectives.
There are two levels of evaluation have
been brought into prominence:
Learner assessment and Course
evaluation.
Both course and learner evaluation have
a similar function in providing feedback on
the ESP course.
Each type of evaluation also has other
purposes and procedures. Evaluation of
the learners reflects not just the learners’
performance but to some extent the
effectiveness of the course too.

An ESP course is supposed to be

successful: it is set up in order to enable
particular learners to do particular things
with language. Evaluation of the learners
is not only to indicate exactly where a fault
lies, but it also will indicate the existence
of a fault somewhere. Diagnostic
evaluation can be used to trace the fault.
 Learner assessment
With any language course there is a need
to assess student performance at
strategic points in the course, at the
beginning and at the end.
ESP is concerned with the ability to
perform particular communicative tasks.
The facility to assess proficiency is central
to the whole concept of ESP. The results
of this assessment enable sponsors,
teachers and learners to decide whether
and how much language is required.
 The Role of the ESP teacher
The ESP teacher will have to deal with
needs analysis, syllabus design, material
writing or adaptation and evaluation. The
second way in which ESP teaching
differs from GE teaching is that the great
majority of ESP teachers have not been
trained.
They need to orientate themselves to a
new environment for which they have
generally been ill-prepared.
THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION!