The Campanille at ISU English 528 English for Specific Purposes -- Fall 2006
English for specific purposes (ESP) refers to that branch of ESL teaching and research in which the course content and teaching methods are derived from an analysis of a specific language use situation, such as English for business, English for tour guides, English for English teaching, or English for air traffic control. ESP courses are usually contrasted with general purpose courses, in which purpose is more broadly defined, as in “Level 3 Reading” or “Advanced Communication Skills” or “Intermediate Grammar.” However, it is important to note that courses are not either general purpose or specific purpose - all English language courses are developed for some purpose - but that there is a continuum of specificity from very general to very specific, and a given course may fall at any point on the continuum. We will consider the argument that ESP is a special case of communicative language teaching, since both are based on a theoretical construct of contextualized communicative language ability, and ESP courses are no different in terms of the qualities of good teaching practice from other ESL courses.
Typically, however, ESP courses have been construed as those involving English for academic purposes and for occupational or professional purposes. We will focus on two aspects of ESP teaching and research that may be said to distinguish them from more general purpose English: authenticity of task and theinteraction between language knowledge and specific purpose content knowledge. Authenticity of task means that the ESP learning tasks should share critical features of tasks in the target language use situation of interest to the learners, and that learners’ language knowledge is engaged in responding to the communicative situation. The interaction between language knowledge and content, or background, knowledge is perhaps the clearest defining feature of ESP, for in more general purpose language teaching, the factor of background knowledge is usually seen as a confounding variable, contributing to individual differences among learners and to be minimized as much as possible. In ESP teaching, on the other hand, background knowledge is a necessary, integral part of the concept of the specific purpose language ability we are attempting to teach.
Required Text: Basturkmen, H. (2006). Ideas and Options in English for Specific Purposes. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Earlbaum. (B in schedule)
Recommended Text: Dudley-Evans, T. & St John, M.J. (1998). Developments in English for Specific Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (DESJ in schedule)
In the class, we will spend a lot of time discussing research on ESP and the development of ESP courses and materials, but we’ll also spend time with the very interesting comparison and contrast of ESP in ESL with language register analysis, mainly on the analyses of situationally-defined varieties of language closely related to ESP situations. We will follow the organization of the main text as far as topics are concerned, but will do a fair amount of reading of journal articles and book chapters in addition.
Assignments and Grades
Students will complete several individual and group assignments. Grades will be based on the following:
| Class preparation & participation, completion of assigned readings, in-class work |
15% |
| Review of a related article | 15% |
| Language analysis (pairs or small groups) | 25% |
| ndividual case study presentation | 15% |
| Final Project (pairs or small groups) (paper + presentation) | 30% |
| Total | 100% |
SCHEDULE
Adjustments will be necessary -- so stay tuned! If you are late or miss a class, you are still responsible for knowing any changes that were announced. As this is a weekly class, I would emphasize the importance of having perfect course attendance.
Week |
Topic |
Readings |
Week 1 – August 22 |
Overview of ESP |
DESJ ch 1 |
Week 2 – August 29 |
ESP trends |
DESJ ch 1 |
Week 3 – September 5 |
Needs analysis |
Brown chapter 2 |
Week 4 – September 12 |
English for academic purposes |
DESJ ch 3 |
Week 5 – September 19 |
Language systems |
B ch 4 |
Week 6 – September 26 |
Language uses |
B ch 5 |
Week 7 – October 3 |
Combining language descriptions |
B ch 6 |
Week 8 – October 10 |
Conditions for Learning |
B ch 7 |
Week 9 – October 17 |
Processes of Learning |
B ch 8 |
Week 10 – October 24 |
Final Project Development Class |
Uvin (2994) P |
Week 11 – October 31 |
Methodology |
B ch 9 |
Week 12 – November 7 |
Objectives |
B ch 10 |
Week 13 – November 14 |
Course design |
DESJ ch 8 |
Week 14 – November 21 |
Thanksgiving week |
|
Week 15 – November 28 |
The role of materials |
DESJ chapter 9 |
Week 16 – December 5 |
Presentations |
|
Final Project Due December 6 at noon in Ross 319