Category Archives: ESAP

English for Specific Academic Purposes

The 6 principles for exemplary teaching of English learners:  Academic and other specific purposes.

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The 6 principles for exemplary teaching of English learners:  Academic and other specific purposes. TESOL International Association (2020),

TESOL International Association have recently published 2 more books of interest to ESP teachers in their 6 principles for exemplary teaching of English learners series. The third book in the series focusses on teaching English for academic and other specific purposes.

The book consists of a preface and 5 chapters.

The preface introduces the 6 principles of exemplary teaching on which the series is based and describes the intended audience for the series. The 6 principles provide a solid foundation for any ESP programme, and, though they need a some localised refinement for the wide diversity of ESP contexts, they are an excellent source of
reflection on current teaching practice.

The 6 principles provide a basis for decision making, planning and teaching. They are:

  1. Know your learners,
  2. Create conditions for language learning,
  3. Design high-quality lessons for language development,
  4. Adapt lesson delivery as needed,
  5. Monitor and assess student language development,
  6. Engage and collaborate within a community of practice.

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METHODOLOGY AND PRESENTATION IN RELATION TO PUPIL INTEREST

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METHODOLOGY AND PRESENTATION IN RELATION TO PUPIL INTEREST

In schools that train pupils in the vocations and in special techniques, in those devoted entirely to the arts or sciences, and in those offering specialized courses and training for other than an academic degree, great care must be exercised not only in selecting textbooks but in drawing up a course of study which will be in harmony with the particular interests of the students. Unfortunately very few specialized language textbooks are available for such schools, but material can be mimeographed and distributed to the students.
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Is EAP ESP?

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At the ESP Special Interest Group (SIG)  meeting at the IATEFL conference in Brighton this year, there seemed to be some lack of agreement as to whether EAP was a type of ESP. This was shown in several presentations – and committee discussions – when ESP seemed to be contrasted with EAP.  People would say and write things such as “In ESP and EAP” and “it is true in ESP, but what about EAP?”

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Languages for Specific Purposes: Review.

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Language for Specific Purposes. Sandra Gollin-Kies, David R. Hall, and Stephen H. Moore. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Theoretical and practical books about ESP teaching are rare, so I was happy to see this book available recently. Although the title is “Languages for Specific Purposes”, most of the examples are from English and as well as that useful research from other languages is included. The book is highly recommended to all ESP, including EAP, teachers.

In Language for Specific Purposes, Gollin-Kies, Hall, and Moore provide a good overview of the history, concepts, application, pedagogy and research of language for specific purposes (LSP).

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ESP and Common Sense

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I remember a number of years ago, after a morning of evaluating student oral presentations with a colleague and wondering why they sometimes said strange things, I mentioned that it seemed to me that people lost their common sense when they were speaking a language they were not very confident in. My colleague – who was a good linguist and had never experiences such issues – disagreed.

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IATEFL ESP SIG PCE, 2016 – Overview

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I’ve just returned from the IATEFL English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Special Interest Group (SIG) Pre-Conference Event (PCE) in Birmingham, UK.

The theme of the PCE was tensions and debates in ESP and EAP.

As usual it was a very interesting day with teachers from many parts of the world discussing how they go about trying to meet the academic and professional linguistic needs of their students, sometimes with limited resources.

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TESOL-IATEFL ESP discussion

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I recently took part in a TESOL – IATEFL online discussion about how ESP projects can create positive social change.
Kevin Knight – the organiser – gave us the following task:

You are all members of a task force team to provide language training for employees of multinational corporation. The HR department of the company is interested in your ideas about providing not only in-house training but also involving local universities in the training of its employees. In addition, the HR department is wondering how such training could be connected to its annual report on Corporate Social Responsibility. Share your ideas in connection with the big picture: How ESP projects can create positive social change.

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Where Next for EAP?

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There has been much discussion recently about what exactly students have to do in order to succeed in HE. Gillett & Hammond (2009), for example, identified a range of tasks that need to be managed in order to succeed and Nesi & Gardner (2012) looked in great detail  at the genres which students need to work with. This has been a very useful contribution to the development of EAP.  However, Feak (2011) identifies the difficulties that some students might have with these genres in multidisciplinary degrees and courses.  Furthermore, my  recent experience working with students from one discipline, business students, has shown that many of the assignments that the students have to produce are much more complicated and not so easily classified.  I’d like to show some examples of these and ask how we can best help our insessional students to deal with them.

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