Unit 1 - Task 2 - Defining ESP

ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES - HISTORY

The end of the second World War (1945)

Economic Power of USA.

Rapid growth of science and technology

Increased use of English as the international language of:

the expansion in scientific, technical and economic activity on an international scale.

Oil Crises (1970)

EVOLUTION

Increased numbers of international students studying in UK, USA, and Australia.

It was created a new generation of learners who knew specifically why they were learning language.

English became the accepted international language of technology and trade.

The general effect of all this development was to exert pressure on the language teaching profession to deliver the required goods.

English had previously decided its’ own destiny, it now became subject to the wishes, needs and demands of people others than language.

In ESP context, the outcomes of the historical occurrences resulted from a number of people across the globe who wanted to learn English language due to the key language for the fields of science, technology and commerce. (Hutchinson T., & Waters, A., 1987)

The emergence of ESP teaching movement resulted from the English language needs of the learners for specific purposes in accordance with their professions or job description.

DEVELOPMENT

3. Target situation analysis

4. Analysis of study skills and strategies.

5. Analysis of learning needs

2. Rhetorical and Discourse Analysis

1. Register Analysis.

Aims to identify lexical and grammatical features of registers.

The teaching materials focused on these linguistic features which represented the syllabus.

The 1980s recorded a step ahead in the approach to ESP.

understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce meaning

To identify the organizational patterns in texts

To specify the linguistic means by which these patterns are signaled. All these patterns represented the syllabus.

It' s also known as the learner-centered approach. In this phase, ESP was based on the reasons why student learn English.

This approach generally concentrates on reading and listening strategies, the characteristic exercises get the learners to reflect on and analyze how meaning is produced in and retrieved from written or spoken discourse.

It involves considering the process of learning and student motivation, working out what is needed to enable students to reach the target.