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Professional Practice: English for Specific Purposes

200/2010

Tutors:            Steve Mann,            steve.mann@warwick.ac.uk                                         

                        Keith Richards         K.Richards@warwick.ac.uk

Students:

The ESP professional practice module is for all MA in ESP students, and any MA in ELT students with an interest in ESP (ELT students please talk with Steve about this). 

Module:

The Teaching of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) incorporates English for Academic or Educational Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) and is a well-established branch of English language teaching requiring a specialised approach to course design.  The module aims to give a broad overview of the field and provide a practical training in course and syllabus design and materials production. 

By the end of the module, participants should be able to:

• conduct analyses of the communicative and linguistic needs of specified groups of learners
• design appropriate courses for specified groups of ESP learners
• critically evaluate and select ESP teaching materials and methods
• create original ESP teaching materials
• recommend methods of assessment and testing appropriate for specified ESP contexts
• conduct ESP course evaluations

Module topics

ESP course design

• Principles of ESP course design
• Theory and practice of needs analysis
• Approaches to the ESP teaching syllabus
• Criteria for successful course design
• Assessment in ESP contexts
• ESP course evaluation

ESP Materials development and evaluation

• Published v in-house materials
• EAP materials design
• Business English
• Observation of ESP classes
• Presentation and demonstration of project materials
• Peer evaluation of project materials

ALL STUDENTS WHO TAKE THIS MODULE MUST TAKE PART IN THE SIMULATION IN WEEK 2 (January 11^th and 12^th)

Working methods:

Five hours per week in weeks 2-9, with materials presentations in week 10.

A combination of simulation, plenary input, group discussion tasks, individual presentations and teaching observations.

The assignment

The project takes the form of a proposal for an ESP course (with specimen materials) for a group of students of your choice. The learning context could be your place of work, a school or a university where you have studied, or any other learning environment that you know well. The project must include a description of the learners and their target needs, a course description and a syllabus, sample materials sufficient for about six hours of teaching / learning, proposals for student assessment and course evaluation, and a rationale.

Notes on reading

A basic book list is provided below – we recommend that you read at least two or three chapters a week from these books. We will provide additional bibliographies for all the ESP topics. You will need to refer to a wide range of sources in your project.

Basic book list

Bell, D (2002) ‘Help! I've been asked to teach a class on ESP!' in IATEFL Voices, Issue 169, Oct/Nov

Benesch, S (2001) Critical English for Academic Purposes: theories, politics and practice  

Bhatia, V. (1993) Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings  London: Longman

Douglas, D.(2000) Assessing Languages for Specific Purposes  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Dudley-Evans, T. & M. J. St John (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purposes  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Dudley-Evans, T (2001) ‘English for Specific Purposes' in The Cambridge Guide to TESOL, Cambridge University Press

Ellis, M. & C. Johnson (1994) Teaching Business English  Oxford: Oxford University Press

Flowerdew, J (ed) (1994) Academic Listening: Research Perspectives  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Flowerdew, J. & Peacock, M. (2001) Research perspectives on English for Academic Purposes  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Hewings, M. & Nickerson, C (eds) (1999) Business English: Research into Practice Harlow: Longman

Harding, K (2007) English for Specific Purposes, Oxford University Press

Hyland, K (2000) Disciplinary Discourses: social interactions in academic writing Harlow: Longman

Jordan, R. (1997) English for Academic Purposes  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Reeves, N. & Wright, C. (1996) Linguistic Auditing: a guide to identifying foreign language needs in corporations  Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Swales, J. (1985) Episodes in ESP  London: Prentice Hall.

Swales, J. (1990) Genre Analysis  Cambridge University Press

The Professional Practice Project