ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

Sayyidah Balqies 2223101112

A. Background As English became the accepted international language of technology and commerce, new learners who knew specifically why they need English were created. The language teaching professions had to develop courses to fulfill those learners needs. Also focus on the learners needs became equally paramount as the methods employed to disseminate linguistic knowledge. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is designed to introduce a learning centred approach to ESP, and the development of a programme of instruction for ESP. Moreover, ESP (English for Specific Purposes) has been referred to as "applied ELT" as the content and aims of any course are determined by the needs of a specific group of learners. ESP is often divided into EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and EOP (English for Occupational Purposes). Further sub-divisions of EOP are sometimes made into business English, professional English (e.g. English for doctors, lawyers) and vocational English (e.g. English for tourism, nursing, aviation, bricklaying). The aim is to enable you plan and design ESP programmes and teaching materials for use in our own teaching contexts. I make this article to fulfill my final test, moreover; this article is meant to give me a general overview about ESP or it can be a self study for students. B. Definition and Characteristics of English for Spesific Purposes (ESP) English for specific purposes has been defined by many writers and researchers, such as: Mackay and Mountford (1978) indicated that the term ESP is generally used to refer to the teaching of English for a clear utilitarian purpose. El-Minyawi (1984) pinpointed that ESP courses are based solidly upon the need to express the facts and ideas of some special subjects after which the student should be able to read the specialized subjects confidently and speak about them fluently.

 Hutchinson and Waters (1987), they defined it as an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners reason for learning, they added also that the term ESP implies that, it is English which is somehow peculiar to the range of principles and procedures which define that particular profession. Belcher (2006), states that ESP assumes that the problems are unique to specific learners in specific contexts and thus must be carefully delineated and addressed with tailored to fit instruction (p. 135). Mohan (1986) adds that ESP courses focus on preparing learners for chosen communicative environments (p. 15). Lorenzo (2005) states that ESP concentrates more on language in context than on teaching grammar and language structures (p. 1). Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) modified Strevens' original definition of ESP. Firstly I will begin with Strevens. He defined ESP by identifying its absolute and variable characteristics. Strevens' (1988) definition makes a distinction between four absolute and two variable characteristics:

I. Absolute characteristics: ESP consists of English language teaching which are:

designed to meet specified needs of the learner; related in content (i.e. in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines, occupations and activities;

centred on the language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics, etc., and analysis of this discourse;

in contrast with General English.

II. Variable characteristics: ESP may be, but is not necessarily:

restricted as to the language skills to be learned (e.g. reading only); not taught according to any pre-ordained methodology (pp.1-2).

Anthony (1997) notes that there has been considerable recent debate about what ESP means despite the fact that it is an approach which has been widely used over the last three decades. At a 1997 Japan Conference on ESP, Dudley-Evans offered a modified definition.

The revised definition of Dudley and St. John:

I. Absolute Characteristics

ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learner; ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves; ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities.

II. Variable Characteristics

ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines; ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of general English;

ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation. It could, however, be for learners at secondary school level;

ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students; Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners (1998, pp. 4-5).

Dudley-Evans and St. John have removed the absolute characteristic that 'ESP is in contrast with General English' and added more variable characteristics. They assert that ESP is not necessarily related to a specific discipline. Furthermore, ESP is likely to be used with adult learners although it could be used with young adults in a secondary school setting.

As for a broader definition of ESP, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) theorize, "ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner's reason for learning" (p. 19). Anthony (1997) notes that, it is not clear where ESP courses end and general English courses begin; numerous non-specialist ESL instructors use an ESP approach in that their syllabi are based on analysis of learner needs and their own personal specialist knowledge of using English for real communication.

From the definition, we can see that ESP can but is not necessarily concerned with a specific discipline, nor does it have to be aimed at a certain age group or ability range. ESP should be seen simple as an 'approach' to teaching, or what Dudley-Evans describes as an 'attitude of mind'. This is a similar conclusion to that made by Hutchinson (1987:19) who state, "ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner's reason for learning". Thus, in my point of view I think the best definition for ESP is the one which defined by Hutchinson and Waters (1987). C. History and Phases in the Development of ESP ESP has a long history in the field of English teaching. From the early 1960s, ESP has grown to become one of the most prominent areas of EFL teaching today. It is driven often by stakeholders, and sometimes by material writers. An examination of ESP textbooks today would find a huge variety of them designed, for example, not just for Business English, but now for Marketing, Banking, and Advertising English. ESP has a history of almost 40 years and so you would expect the ESP community to have a clear idea about what ESP means. The movement toward teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) grew as international recognition for the English language as a medium of communication in science, technology, and commerce was established. The origin of ESP and its development is closely linked with learners interest in various specific disciplines e.g. Law English, English for Hotel Industry or English for Tourist Management. By the 1980s, in many parts of the world, a needs-based philosophy emerged in language teaching, particularly in relation to ESP and vocationally oriented programme design (Brindley, 1984). Students learn English for a specific purpose, represented by studying subject matter, to gain and develop appropriate knowledge and skills through English. The reasons why students learn English are ascertained through needs analysis. It is the process of determining the things that are necessary or useful for fulfilment of defensible purposes. ESP has undergone 3 main phases of development. It is now in a 4th phase with a 5th phase starting to emerge. ESP has developed at different speeds in different countries. The concept of special language: register analysis Beyond the sentence: rhetorical or discourse analysis

Target situation analysis Skills and strategies A learning- centered approach.

1) The concept of special language: register analysis 1960s and early 1970s. The aim was to identify the grammatical and lexical features of the different registers. Teaching materials then took these linguistic features as their syllabus. Register analysis revealed that there was very little that was distinctive in the sentence grammar of Scientific English beyond a tendency to favor particular forms such as the present simple tense, the passive voice and nominal compounds. The main motive behind register analysis was the pedagogic one of making the ESP course more relevant to the students needs. The aim was to produce a syllabus which gave high priority to the language forms students would meet in their Science studies and in turn would give low priority to forms they would not meet. ESP has focused on language at the sentence level, on sentence grammar Description of surface forms.

2) Beyond the sentence: rhetorical or discourse analysis ESP focused its attention on the level above the sentence, as ESP became closely involved with the emerging field of discourse or rhetorical analysis. The leading lights in this movement were Henry Widdowson, Larry Selinker and Louis Trimble. Attention shifted to understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce meaning

The concern of research was to identify the organizational patterns in texts and to specify the linguistic means by which these patterns are signaled. These patterns would then form the syllabus of the ESP course .

Basic hypothesis: we take the view that difficulties which students encounter arise not so much from a defective knowledge of the system of English, but from an unfamiliarity with English use, and that consequently, their needs cannot be met by a course which simply provides further practice in the composition of sentences, but only by one which develops a knowledge of how sentences are used in the performance of different communicative acts (Widdowson , 1974).

3) Target situation analysis What it aimed was to take the existing knowledge and set it on a more scientific basis, by establishing procedures for relating language analysis more closely to learners reasons for learning The purpose of an ESP course is to enable learners to function adequately in a target situation, that is, the situation in which the learners will use the language they are learning. The ESP course design should proceed by first identifying the target situation and then carrying out a rigorous analysis of the linguistic features of that situation. The identified features will form the syllabus of the ESP course. This process is usually known as needs analysis. The target analysis stage marked a certain coming of age for ESP. Learner need was apparently placed at the centre of the course design process. 4) Skills and strategies The principal idea behind the skills-centered approach is that underlying all language use there are common reasoning and interpreting processes, which, regardless of the surface forms, enable us to extract meaning form discourse. There is therefore, no need to focus closely on the surface forms of the language. The focus should rather be on the underlying interpretive strategies, which enable the learner to cope with the surface forms, for example guessing the meaning of words

from context, using visual layout to determine the type of text, exploiting cognates, etc. This approach generally puts the emphasis on reading or 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. The language learners are treated as thinking beings who can be asked to observe and verbalize the interpretive processes they employ in language use. Description of underlying processes

5) A learning- centered approach ESP concern is not with language use although this will help to define the course objectives- our concern is with languae learn. A truly valid approach to ESP must be based on an understanding of the processes of language learning. The learning- centered approach will form the subject of this book.

D. Need Analysis in ESP Needs analysis came to be as a result of the fact that in ESP, the learners have different specific and specifiable communication needs, which informed the development of courses to meet these varying needs. It is, therefore, the process of determining the needs for which a learner or group of learners requires a language and arranging the needs according to priorities. Needs analysis was firmly established in the mid-1970s as course designers came to see learners' purposes rather than specialist language as the driving force behind ESP. Needs analysis is the process of establishing what and how of a course (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998). Conducting a needs analysis is an important first step in the development of a curriculum that is being developed from scratch for a completely new program (Brown, 1995). According to Brown (1995), needs analysis is the systematic collection and analysis of all subjective and objective information necessary to define and validate defensible curriculum purposes that satisfy the language learning requirements of students within the

context of particular institutions that influence the learning and teaching situation (p. 36). For Jordan (1997), needs analysis is the requirement for fact-finding or the collection of data (p. 22). Brindley (1989) states that it is a vital pre-requisite to the specification of language learning objectives (p. 63) while Hutchinson and Waters (1987) add that needs analysis is the most characteristic feature of ESP course design. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) classified needs into necessities, lacks and wants. Necessities are what the learners have to know in order to function effectively in the target situations. By observing the target situations and analyzing the constituent parts of them, we can gather information about necessities.

Lacks are the gap between the existing proficiency and the target proficiency of learners.

Wants are what the learners feel they need. Wants perceived by learners may conflict with necessities perceived by sponsors or EAP teachers and this conflict may have a de-stabilizing effect on motivation. Therefore, ESP course designer or teacher must take into account such differences in materials and methodology (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987).

Before beginning a needs analysis, one must first answer the following crucial question: Will the students use English at the university or in their jobs after graduation?" If the answer is no, then ESP is not a reasonable option for the university's English language programme. The university will have to justify its existence and improve the programme via other means. If the answer is yes, however, then ESP is probably the most intelligent option for the university curriculum. ESP begins with some basic questions to survey what will be needed. Will students use English at the university or in their jobs after graduation? In what situations? For what purposes? What language skills will be required (reading, writing, listening, speaking)? What are the significant characteristics of the language in these situations (lexicon, grammar, spoken scripts, written texts, other characteristics)? What extralinguistic knowledge of academia, specific disciplines, specific vocations, or specific professions is required for successful English usage in these areas?

Target need is like umbrella term, which in practice hides a number of important distinctions: Necessities, Lacks and Wants . The analysis of target needs involves far more than simply identifying the linguistic features of the target situation. Using our analogy of the

ESP course as a journey, ehat we have done so far is to consider the starting point (lacks) and the destination (necessities) and where the destination should be (wants). What we have not considered yet is the route. The whole ESP process is concerned not with knowing or doing, but with learning.

E. Differences between ESP and Ggeneral English (GE) Programmes 'What is the difference between the ESP and General English approach?' Hutchinson (1987:53) answer this quite simply, "in theory nothing, in practice a great deal". When their book was written, of course, the last statement was quite true. At the time, teachers of General English courses, while acknowledging that students had a specific purpose for studying English, would rarely conduct a needs analysis to find out what was necessary to actually achieve it. Teachers nowadays, however, are much more aware of the importance of needs analysis, and certainly materials writers think very carefully about the goals of learners at all stages of materials production. Perhaps this demonstrates the influence that the ESP approach has had on English teaching in general. Clearly the line between where General English courses stop and ESP courses start has become very vague indeed. Rather ironically, while many General English teachers can be described as using an ESP approach, basing their syllabi on a learner needs analysis and their own specialist knowledge of using English for real communication, it is the majority of so-called ESP teachers that are using an approach furthest from that described above. Instead of conducting interviews with specialists in the field, analyzing the language that is required in the profession, or even conducting students' needs analysis, many ESP teachers have become slaves of the published textbooks available, unable to evaluate their suitability based on personal experience, and unwilling to do the necessary analysis of difficult specialist texts to verify their contents.

F. References Mackay, R. & Mountford, A. (Eds.) (1978): English for Specific Purposes: A Case Study Approach. London: Longman.

Hutchinson, T. & Waters, A. (1987): English for Specific Purpose: A Learningcentered approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

www. teachingenglish.org.uk on 17 December 2011, 14.00 WIB https: //docs.google.com.