ESPENGLISH FOR

SPECIAL PURPOSES

COURSE DESIGNSKILLS AND

STRATEGIES

COURSE

DESIGN

is the process by which the raw data about a learning need is interpreted in order to produce an integrated series of teaching-learning experiences, whose ultimate aim is to lead the learners to a particular state of knowledge.

COURSE DESIGN• Some questions:

– Why does the student need to learn?– Who is going to be involved in the process? (students,

teachers, sponsors, inspectors, etc.)– Where is the learning to take place?– When is the learning to take place?– What does the student need to learn?

• To identify the difference between language description and learning theory– Language description: classical grammar, structural

linguistics, transformational generative grammar, functional grammar, language variation and register analysis, discourse analysis

– Learning theories: Learning as habit formation, thinking as rule-governed activity, cognitive code (learners as thinking beings), affective factor (learners as emotional beings, incentives and motivations)

• Learning and acquisition

THREE MAIN TYPES OF ESP COURSE DESIGN

LANGUAGE-CENTERED

COURSE DESIGN

SKILL-CENTERED COURSE

DESIGN

A LEARNING-CENTERED

COURSE DESIGN

this is the simplest kind of course design process and is probably the one most familiar to English Teachers. This aims to draw as direct connections as possible between the analysis of the target situation and the content of ESP course.

Language-centered Course Design

Identiify learner’s target situation

Select theoretical views of language

Create Syllabus

Identify linguistic features of target

situation

Design materials to exemplify syllabus items

Establish evaluation procedures to test acquisition of syllabus items

Skill-centered Course Design

• It has been applied in a number of countries, particularly in Latin America. Students in universities and colleges there have the limited, but important need to read subject texts in English, because they are unavailable in the mother tongue. In response to this need, a number of ESP projects have been set up with specific aim of developing the students’ ability to read in English.

Two fundamental principles

Basic theoretical hypothesisis that underlying any language

behavior are certain skills and strategies which the learner uses in order to produce or comprehend discourse. SCA aims to get away from the surface performance data and look at the competence that underlies the performance

Pragmatic Basis it was derived from a distinction made by Widdowson (1981) between goal-oriented courses and process-oriented courses. Holmes pointed out that:In ESP the main problem is usually one of the time available and student experience. First, the aims may be defined in terms of what is desirable. –i.e. to be able to read in the literature of the students’ specialism but, there may be nowhere near enough time to reach this aim during the period of this course. Secondly, the students may be in their first year of studies with little experience of literature of their specialism. . . Accordingly both this factors.. May be constraints which say right from the start, “the aims cannot be achieved during the course.”

The emphasis in the ESP course, then, is not achieving a particular set of goals, but on enabling the learners to achieve what they can within the given constraints:• The process-oriented approach… is

at least realistic in concentrating on strategies and processes of making students aware of their own abilities and potential, and motivating them to tackle target texts on their own after the end of the course, so that they can continue to improve..

Theoretical views of language

Identify target situation

Analyze skills/ strategies required to cope in target

situation

Write syllabus

Theoretical views of learning

Select text and write exercises to focus on

skills/strategies in syllabus

Establish evaluation procedure which require the use of skill/strategies in

syllabus

this approach is based on the principle that learning is totally determined by the learner. As teachers 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 the flow of new information.

learning, therefore, is an internal process which is crucially dependent upon the knowledge the learners already have and their ability and motivation to use it.

learning is not just a mental process, it is a process of negotiation between individuals and society.

A Learning-centered approach

Identify Learners

Theoreticalviews of

Language

Analyze Target

Situation

Theoreticalviews of Learning

Analyze LearningSituation

Identify attitudes/wants/potential of learners

Identify needs/ potential/ constraints of learning

teaching situation

Identify skills and knowledge needed to function in the target

situation

Write syllabus/materials to exploit the potential of the

learning situation in the acquisition of skills and

knowledge required by the target situation

EvaluationEvaluation

A language-centered approach says: this the nature of the target situation performance and that will determine ESP course.A skills-centered approach says: that’s not enough, we must look behind target performance data to discover what processes enable someone to perform. Those processes will determine the ESP course.A learning-centered approach says: that’s not enough either. We must look beyond the competence that enables someone to perform, because what we really want to discover is not the competence itself, but how someone acquires that competence.

Analyze target situation

Analyze learning situation

Write syllabus

Write materials

Teach materials

Evaluate learner achievement

Identify target situation

A language-centered approachConsiders the learners to here

A skill-centered approachConsiders the learners to here

A learning-centered approachConsiders the learners to here

A comparison of approaches to course design

In the figure shows that a learning-centered approach to course design takes account of the learner at every stage of the design process. This has two implications:

Course design is a negotiated process. There is no single factor which has an outright determining influence on the content of the course. The ESP learning situation and the target situation with both influence the nature of the syllabus, materials, methodology and evaluation procedures. Similarly each of these components will influence and be influenced by the others.Course design is a dynamic process. It does not move in a linear fashion from initial analysis to complete course. Needs and resources vary with time. The course design, therefore, needs to have built-in feedback channels to enable the course to respond to developments.

WHAT?

Languagedescription

s

WHO? WHY?WHERE? WHEN?

Needs Analysis

HOW?

Learning Theories

ESPCOURSE

Nature of particular target

and learning situation

syllabus

Methodology

Factors affecting ESP Course Design

Outline of a learning-centered approach

ESP is based on designing courses to meet Learner’s need

What does course design

involve?

Ways of describing language

Needs Analysis

Models of learning

Approaches to course design

SECTION 2:COURSE DESIGN

How do you use a

course design?

Syllabus design

Materials evaluation

Materials design

Methodology

Evaluation

What is the role of ESP?

ResourcesOrientation

SECTION 3:APPLICATION

SECTION 3:THE TEACHER

Principles of ESP Course Design• This principles below applies to intermediate and advanced students of

English.1. Content difficulty should approximate the level in their normal courses.

This means for instance, you cannot expect medical students and doctors to study high school biology. Medical students need University Level content. And if this means that the English teacher cannot understand the science, then so be it: let the English teacher learn the science.

2. Content should lead language. The content itself should be useful to the students, and should be stretching in its own right. This does not mean that the texts used are always complicated: there are plenty of genres, such as blogs, the latest news etc where the content is new and interesting and still covers the needs to reinforce basic language.

3. The exercises on the material should be authentic, as well as the material itselfThis means an end to trivial tasks, and a major focus on real world comprehension, inferencing, and debating.

4. There should be massive exposure to content and language This massive exposure should often come from many directions simultaneously.5. We need to be using authentically long texts for listening and reading6. Communication gaps should be massively exploitedIt is well known that language is learned fastest when there is a desire to know, or when there is controversy.

7. Methods should draw inspiration from content teachersThe comparison to be made is with how L1 learners advance and learn a new technical subject in L1. Therefore, ESP should draw inspiration from the content teaching methods in L1 (which frequently have high demands on language).

8. Elaborate, but do not simplify Elaborated texts retain the original complex authentic text, with all the associated context, redundancy, and language clues. They add extra supporting material, and this elaboration is much more than translations or synonyms. It can include supplementary material, and extra extended explanations. In short, elaboration should not lead to simplification. Rather, the material is repeatedin another linguistic form.

9. Train students to handle difficult texts. Just as in advanced L1, we should not expectstudents to understand every idea or word Native speaker academics frequently do not understand every single idea or word in a text. Yet they are capable of using the texts. Therefore, the language teacher should not expect students to fully understand every text.

10.Consider using translation as a scaffolding for weak students:

11.Speed up learning by drawing on the research comparing French and EnglishOf course, this research is hard to find, except on this website! Few linguists have been willing todo the careful legwork needed for such comparisons.

12.Massive exposure, and extracting meaningful information should be the focus - NOTlanguage pointsThis point derives from the fact that for students from B2 onwards (upper intermediate) there is no6. Communication gaps should be massively exploited. It is well known that language is learned fastest when there is a desire to know, or when there is controversy.13.A course designer should have three syllabuses: a content syllabus, a language syllabus, and alearning/skills syllabus. The ‘content syllabus’ should be related to the way the specialistsdivide up the subject.

14.Students need exposure to the multiple genres within their specialty. These genres can differ widely in language and style.

15.Ideally, another subject should be taught in English, and failing that, compulsory readings in English should be set by the subject specialist. When students really want to understand, when they are encouraged by examination pressure, then they will make the extra effort to learn.

Skills and strategies

LISTENINGSPEAKINGREADINGWRITING