MELTA

ESP: What’s That and What’s Up?

English for Specific Purposes is probably the most challenging branch in language teaching, especially in our country, where it has only recently started to develop as such. Many teachers still have a rather vague idea of what it is, though it might concern them directly. Therefore, one of the MELTA ESP Section’s paramount concerns is to inform ESP teachers about who they actually are, what they actually teach, and where they actually belong. The first session of the ESP Section held on October 27 tried to throw light on the matter and answer these questions.

First of all, we have to realize what purposes of ELT are really specific, which implies defining specificity. This, however, might lead us too far because the logical end of specificity is the particular language one particular person is using in one particular situation at one particular moment in time. If we agree to this, ESP will fall into thousands of diverse little fields that no one will ever be able to collect together. Therefore, we have to define it more carefully according to the purposes, which is another key word in ESP.

In fact, the term ESP has been in use for a quarter of a century now, and its definition can be found in many issues on the subject that followed the first, classic, edition by T. Hutchinson and A. Waters (English for Specific Purposes, CUP, 1987). The authors illustrated their idea by the picture of a tree. In the picture, ESP is opposed to General English, usually taught for exam purposes. Thus, the first conclusion we can draw is that ESP is teaching English for any other purposes, e.g. work or study. These two are usually called professional (also occupational, or vocational) purposes and academic purposes. According to the division, most secondary schools teach General English simply because their purpose is a particular exam (a GE exam, of course, such as the FCE or the standard Russian school exam). If a student intends to use English in their future profession or wants to continue their academic studies, they need another sort of English that ought to meet some particular needs. Therefore, all our universities and colleges deal with ESP.

However, this division is rather formal, as more and more secondary schools are trying to meet the needs of their students’ future professions these days. Moreover, a lot of effort has been made to build a bridge between secondary and higher education. Despite many failures, this link has sometimes proved productive, which means that those involved in the link changed the exam purpose of GE to the more challenging and particular purpose of ESP. It may be argued though that in some cases the idea has been to pass a particular exam; then we would have to consider whether the exam itself has really been a specific purpose English exam.

Climbing further up Hutchinson’s tree, we can find the division into three branches of relatively general specialism: English for Science and Technology, English for Business an Economics, and English for Social Sciences, each of which are then further split into EOP and EAP respectively, and, finally, at the very top, we can see the examples of particular outcomes. Here some of us might start to become doubtful. Why? First of all, we return back to professionalism through the opposition of occupational to academic: for example, the sequence English for Social Sciences – English for Occupational Purposes – English for Teachers seems a bit strangely opposed to English for Social Sciences – English for Academic Purposes – English for Psychology. Does it mean that the profession of a teacher is not academically developed, or that being a psychologist is not an occupation? Besides, the initial split into three (why not more?) professional branches seems to be artificial as well. Can’t the job of a psychologist be connected with doing business, or can’t a teacher teach technicians or economists? The only thing that still seems obvious is that there has to be a distinction between EAP and EOP, but where we split them is rather a problem.

We have to remember that the ESP founders wrote their book in the early 1980s, when the opposition between science and technology and the humanities was still considered natural (remember the debate between physics and lyrics in the 1960s?). The current tendency has brought us to multiple links not only between subjects and professions, but also between professional and academic careers. Times have changed, and so has ESP.

It is very difficult to distinguish between what is academic and what is professional. We may, for instance, design a course of Academic Reading for Political Science, or Professional Writing for Doctors, or Academic Vocabulary for Engineering. However, what is important is that there are academic skills that should be taught for the purpose of professional development, because most of our students will need English not only to work but also to develop their careers, which, in turn, implies academic development.

Academic skills, therefore, may well become the basis for professional development. We could build up a framework of ESP teaching based on methods and techniques in teaching academic skills to professionals. By the way, the English word academic is often misunderstood by Russian teachers who think that it belongs to academicians and theorists. In fact, the word defines any educational subject despite the level. Children start being taught academic skills literally with their first day at school; for example, working on writing, reading, organizing their time, presenting their assignments, etc. Using academic skills as a framework in ESP, we can unite otherwise diverse professional fields in which English is taught, and provide ESP teachers with the necessary knowledge and tools to deal with their own students’ specializations.

We should also remember that we are not specialists in the field, but in teaching English. Every time we enter the classroom we ought to know that our subject is English for the profession, and not the profession in English! We help our students, who know their subject much better than we do, develop the skills which are essential for them in understanding, using, and/or presenting authentic information in their profession. A professional ESP teacher must be able to easily switch from one professional field to another without being obliged to spend months on getting started. He or she simply brings the necessary tools, frameworks, and principles of course design to apply them to new material.

The material (the content) should be provided by the professors or experts in the subject. It should always be authentic, as the main purpose of teaching academic skills is to enable students to deal with authentic information despite their level of English; up-to-date, as the informational exchange is growing more and more intense; and relevant for the students’ specializations, as they ought to be given the information representative for their target language use situation.

Unfortunately, ESP teachers often feel isolated both from professionals in their students’ specializations as well as their colleagues in other institutions. They also have difficulty in getting or exchanging information in the field. We can conclude, therefore, that the main purpose of the ESP Sections throughout Russia should be providing a necessary network. The RESPONSE project, which has recently been carried out by the British Council and the RF Ministry of Education, has proved the importance of such a network. The first groups of ESP teachers have already started a training course in St. Petersburg. And we have enough experts in Moscow to start a teacher training ESP course for MELTA.

Now we can easily answer the questions we asked in the beginning of this article.

Who are ESP teachers? They are teachers at vocational schools, colleges and universities, as well as any other teachers who deal with their students’ professional development. Professional ESP teachers are experts in teaching English for any profession, able to design teaching materials based on the content material presented by the professors, or experts in the subject.

What do they teach? ESP teachers teach academic skills to future (or real) professionals. They teach English for the profession and encourage their students to use their background knowledge along with the academic skills in dealing with all sorts of authentic information in their profession. ESP teachers design courses according to their students’ professional needs, having in mind their target language use situation.

Where do ESP teachers belong? They belong to their professional unit, the ESP Section of their regional English Language Teachers’ Association. ESP Sections should unite teachers, help them share their experience and knowledge, obtain new ideas and information on methods and techniques in teaching ESP, and actually get together and form their own professional community.

ESP is our cup of tea. What about having it with us?

If you consider yourself an ESP teacher, the MELTA ESP Section is waiting for you.

Irina Korotkina