BAB I

BACKGROUND

A. Introduction

Materials design as a key area within EFL/ESL (English as Foreign Language/English

as a Second Language) teaching goes back to Cunningsworth (1984) and has since then
developed into a topic that has been dealt with in many volumes (Sheldon, 1987; McDonough
and Shaw, 1993; Tomlinson, 1998, 2003a; McGrath, 2002; or Renandya, 2003, to name but a
few), journal papers, conferences, courses, seminars, workshops and other forms of academic
interest around the world. In fact, the existence of an international association such as
MATSDA attests the relevance now enjoyed by materials development in language learning.
Many universities and language centres have begun to offer specialised modules or Master’s
and PhD courses on materials development. Moreover, at some universities, materials
development may be regarded as a key merit for candidates applying for a job and on the same
level as a PhD degree, teaching experience or (near-) native language competence.

B. Formulation of Problem
1. How to design the syllabus of ESP?
2. What the material of ESP?
 BAB II

DISCUSSION

A. Definition of syllabus

According to the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics,

a syllabus can be defined as 'a description of the contents of a course of instruction and the
order in which they are to be taught' (Richards et al. 1992, 368). A syllabus is the guide to a
course and what will be expected of you in the course. Generally, it will include course policies,
rules and regulations, required texts, and a schedule of assignments. A syllabus can tell us
nearly everything we need to know about how a course will be run and what will be expected
of us.

B. Steps in Designing the ESP Syllabus

In order to design an ESP course, course developers process it through a series of steps.
In general occasions designing a course should be based on the following stages: needs
analysis, setting goals and objectives, teaching theory, content and syllabus design, material
selection and evaluation (Xenodohidis, 2002. Raluca, 2002).

 Needs Analysis
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987:54) „ language needs‟ is the core of
learners‟ language centered- approach to course design. That is to say, the ability to
comprehend and / or produce the language. In ESP settings, learners‟ needs are not just
language centered but they are more related to the context and learning process. Consequently,
Hutchinson and Waters (1987:54-58) suggest two prospectives „target needs‟ and „ learning
needs‟. The former is regarded as „necessities‟ (what the learner needs in order to function
effectively in the target situation). „Lacks‟ involve the gaps between required proficiency and
the learner actual level. „Wants‟ are learner‟s objectives to attend an ESP course. The latter
concerns the knowledge and abilities required to perform the required degree of competence in
the target situation (ibid).
  Specifying Goals and Objectives
In ESP, goals are directed towards developing learners‟ communicative competence.
According to Corder (1973), syllabus is related to the learner or to the society. In other words,
objectives should be what the learner wants for the purpose of his social behavior. Chenyiic
(2010) goes deeply into saying that ESP is concerned with communicative approach according
to which the communicative goals are the prime concern. He adds that the communicative goal
is suitable for ESP learners because they utilize English in real situations

 Teaching theory
The following step is to determine the appropriate approach within which goals are
achieved. Communicative language teaching (CLT) becomes the most dominant trend in the
field of second language teaching (SLT). It implies that communicative competence “the ability
not only to produce well-formed sentences but to know how and when to use these sentences”
(Richard Platt & Platt, 1998). Responding to this new trend, ESP puts the practical concerns at
the first place. Learners are motivated when they learn through tasks and problem solving
activities. CLT can be supported by some principles from other approaches.

 Content/Syllabus Design
Firstly, in a content- based instruction, language knowledge and proficiency should not
be neglected as they play an important role in the learning process (Stephen et al, 1997).
Secondly, the content should include one topic/theme or more, how to integrate them and in
which order. This idea is referred to as syllabus. Hutchinson & Waters (1987:80) define the
syllabus as “A document which says what will (or at least what should) be learnt”. Usually, a
syllabus takes a form of classified list of what component should be put, and in what order.
This would be from a general to a particular, and vice versa or from known to unknown
depending on the most needed skill that the learners want to develop.
  Material selection
According to Hutchinson & Waters (1987), it is a process of turning the course into
intelligible teaching materials through the implementation of the following tasks: materials
evaluation, materials development, and materials adaptation. This work should be done by
professional specialists mostly teachers with full experience in the teaching of ESP courses.
The process of materials evaluation is divided into four major steps: defining criteria,
analyzing, selecting, and applying. The first step is a process of gathering information about
the following criteria: who are the audience, what is the aim of materials used, the content
selected, and the methodology followed. The second step is an analysis of the materials already
developed in terms of advantages and disadvantages.

 Evaluation
Evaluation in this case will provide a kind of a feedback from the learners about course
effectiveness. To access the evaluation process two procedures are introduced: a learner
assessment and course evaluation (ibid).
Learner assessment: Language courses are built on learners‟ performance. These
courses progress if the evaluation shows positive results on learners‟ ability to perform the
required tasks towards course objectives.

Evaluation can be done for many purposes some of which are:

 To give learners opportunity to show what they have learnt and what they can do with the
language in real situations.

 To get opinions on the learner‟s progress and to help the teacher to confirm assessment
and make decisions.

 To provide some standardization by which performance and progress will be judged.

Douglas (2013:367/368).
C. Materials development and ESP
1. What are materials in ESP?
In language teaching, materials are:
Anything which is used to help to teach language learners. Materials can be found in
the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-Rom, a video, a photocopied handout, a
newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard: anything which presents or informs about the
language being learned. (Tomlinson, 1998: xi) Such a definition might also serve the purpose
of ESP materials; however, four main issues should be emphasised before proceeding any
further:
 There are major and minor ESP areas/courses, and published materials are sensible to this
reality. Business English and Maritime English are examples of these3. Some courses that
are tailor-made to suit a particular group of students would also fall within the minor
category (for instance, English for tourism to a group of taxi drivers and policemen in a
popular town for British tourists).
 Subject-matter content is fundamental to ESP materials. Also known as carrier content,
informative content, discipline-based knowledge, specific content, specialist knowledge or
expert knowledge, this refers to the information which is specific to a particular discipline
and which people, like students and future experts, possess in their mother tongue. ESP
teachers will need a reasonable understanding of the specific discipline as well as “an
interest in the disciplines or professional activities the students are involved in” (Dudley-
Evans and St John, 1998: 14).
 All too often, ESP teachers become evaluators, designers and developers of materials,
simply because “publishers are naturally reluctant to produce materials for very limited
markets” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 106) and most ESP areas conform to this reality.
These roles are not exclusive to ESP teachers but, if compared with EFL/ESL teachers,
they are more often engaged in the task of evaluating, designing and developing materials
for their classroom use. It is precisely this additional role of materials providers/developers
that has endowed ESP teachers with the denomination of practitioners (Robinson, 1991).
 Unlike EFL/ESL teaching, there exists a mismatch between pedagogy and research; that
is, there is a gap between coursebooks and pedagogical practice, on the one hand, and
research findings, on the other. For instance, as Harwood (2005: 150) found, there is “a
lack of fit between how academic writers write and what the textbooks teach about
writing”.
 2. What does ESP materials development entail?
Materials are particularly useful in ESP because they play a key role in exposing
learners to the language of a particular discipline as it is actually used; in short, they are a
source of “real language” (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 171). Developing materials for
the ESP classroom is a trade-off between learning needs, language content and subject-matter
content which implies the review of a number of issues:
 What is the target topic/what will be the carrier content?
 Is this topic relevant for my students/the discipline?
 What do I, as an ESP practitioner, know about the carrier content?
 What are my students supposed to know about the carrier content?
 To what extent do materials reflect the language/conventions of the discipline?
 What are the learning goals?
 What is the target language form/function/skill?
 What materials are available, suitable and accessible?
 What teaching equipment is required and available?
 How much time should be spent on the design, development and implementation of
activities?
 Will materials be classroom-oriented or provide additional work?

At its most basic level, the process of ESP materials development is as shown in Figure.
Firstly, available materials are reviewed, evaluated and selected according to different criteria
and with reference to a particular ESP course.
Then, if there is a lack of materials, or if materials available are not suitable according
to such evaluation, practitioners might be required to develop materials from scratch or abridge,
extend, refine, rewrite – in short, adapt – the available materials for a particular learning
situation, ESP area, target group of learners, timing or set of resources. There exists the
possibility that, although there are materials available for classroom use, practitioners feel the
need to provide additional materials for out-of-classroom work, self-study or the like. In this
case, the process would not differ.
 Lastly, because materials development is an ongoing process, those engaged in creating
or adapting materials will be required to pilot test or perform evaluative reviews so as to adjust
materials over time in response to implementation outcomes, current trends in the field or
research findings.

This last step is a desirable practice because “materials that undergo this evaluative
review and revision process are likely to serve student and teacher audiences more effectively
than materials that do not” (Stoller et al., 2006:175). Developing materials is a matter of trial
and error, and it will be convenient to bear in mind that materials that are appropriate for a
particular ESP course/area may not prove so efficient for other ESP courses/areas.
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Raluca, N. (2002). Designing an ESP course a case study: students in tourism .Retrieved Jan,
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