THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ESP

The definition of ESP

ESP has had a relatively long time to mature and so we would expect the ESP
community to have a clear idea about what ESP means. Strangely, however, this
does not seem to be the case. In October this year, for example, a very heated
debate took place on the TESP-L e-mail discussion list about whether or not
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) could be considered part of ESP in general.
At the Japan Conference on ESP also, clear differences in how people interpreted
the meaning of ESP could be seen. Some people described ESP as simply being the
teaching of English for any purpose that could be specified. Others, however, were
more precise, describing it as the teaching of English used in academic studies or
the teaching of English for vocational or professional purposes.
At the conference, guests were honored to have as the main speaker, Tony Dudley-
Evans, co-editor of the ESP Journal mentioned above. Very aware of the current
confusion amongst the ESP community in Japan, Dudley-Evans set out in his one
hour speech to clarify the meaning of ESP, giving an extended definition of ESP in
terms of 'absolute' and 'variable' characteristics (see below).

Definition of ESP (Dudley-Evans, 1997)

Absolute Characteristics

1. ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learners

2. ESP makes use of underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it
serves
3. ESP is centered on the language appropriate to these activities in terms of
grammar, lexis, register, study skills, discourse and genre.

Variable Characteristics

1. ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines

2. ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that
of General English
3. 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
4. ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students.
5. Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language systems

The definition Dudley-Evans offers is clearly influenced by that of Strevens

(1988), although he has improved it substantially by removing the absolute
characteristic that ESP is "in contrast with 'General English'" (Johns et al., 1991:
298), and has included more variable characteristics. The division of ESP into
absolute and variable characteristics, in particular, is very helpful in resolving
arguments about what is and is not ESP. 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 et al. (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"

II. CONTENT

THE ORIGIN OF ESP

The Demands of a brave new world

The end of the Second World War in 1945 heralded an age of enormous and
unprecedented expansion in scientific, technical and economic activity on an
international scale. This expansion created a world unified and dominated by two
forces – technology and commerce – which in their relentless progress soon
generated a demand for international language.
The effect was to create a whole new mass of people wanting to learn English, not
for the pleasure or prestige of knowing the language, but because English was the
key to the international currencies of technology and commerce. The general effect
of all this development was to exert pressure on the language teaching profession
to deliver the required goods.

A Revolution in Linguistic

At the same time as the demand was growing for English courses tailored to
specific needs, influential new ideas began to emerge in the study of language.
Traditionally the aim of linguistic had been to describe the rule of English usage
that is the grammar. However, the new studies shifted attention away from
defining the formal features of language usage to discovering the ways in which
language is actually used in real communication (Widdowson, 1978). One finding
of this research was that the language we speak and write varies considerably, and
in a number of different ways, from one context to another. The idea was simple if
language varies from one situation of use to another; it should be possible to
determine the features of specific situation and then make these features the basis
of the learners’ course.
In short, the view gained ground that the English needed by a particular group of
learners could be identified by analysing the linguistic characteristics of their
specialist area of a work or study.

Focus on the Learner

Learners were seen to have different needs and interest which would have an
important influent on their motivation to learn and therefore on the effectiveness of
their learn. The clean relevance of the English course to their needs would improve
the learners’ motivation and thereby make learning better and faster.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESP

ESP has develop at different speeds in different countries, and example of all the
approaches we shall describe can be found operating somewhere in the world at the
present time.

2.2.1. The concept of special language: register analysis

This stage took place mainly in the 1960s and early 1970s and was associated in
particular with the work of Peter Strevens (Halliday Melcintosh and Stevens,
1964), Jack Ewer ( Ewer and Lattore, 1969) and John Swales (1971).
Operating on the basic principle that the English of, say, electrical engineering
constituted as specific register different from that of, say, biology or of general
English, the aim of the analysis was to identify the grammatical and lexical future
of these registers. Teaching materials then took these linguistic features as their
syllabus. A good example of such a syllabus is that of A Course in Basic Scientific
English by Ewer and Latorre (1969).

The aim was to produce a syllabus which gave high priority to the language forms
students would need in their. Sciences studies and in turn would give low priority
to forms they would not meet. Ewer and Hughes-Davies (1971).

Beyond the sentence: rhetorical or discourse analysis

ESP had focused on language at the sentence level, the second phase of
development shifted attention to the level about the sentence, as ESP become
closely involved with the emerging field of discourse or rhetorical analysis.

Target Situation Analysis.

The stage that we come to consider now did not really add anything new to the
range of knowledge about ESP. What it aimed to do was to take the existing
knowledge and set it on a more scientific basis, by establishing procedures for
relating language analyzing more closely to learners’ reasons for learning. Given
that the purpose of an ESP course is to enable learners to function adequately in a
target situation, that is, the situation in which learners will use the language they
are learning, then the ESP course design process 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 need analysis. However, we
prefer to take Chambers’ (1980) term of target situation analysis, since it is a more
accurate description of the process concerned.

The most thought explanation of target situation analysis is the system set out by
John Munby in communicative Syllabus Design (1978). The Munby model
produces a detailed profile of the learners needs in terms of communication
purposes, communicative setting, the means of communication, language skills,
functions, structures etc.

Skills and Strategies

The fourth stage of ESP has seen an attempt to look below the surface and to
consider not the language itself but the thinking processes that underlie language
use. There is no dominant figure in this movement, although we might mention the
work of Francoise Grellent (1981).

The principal idea behind the skills centered approach is that underlying all
language use there are common reasoning interpreting processes, which, regardless
of surface forms, enable us to extract meaning form discourse. There is, therefore,
no need to focus closely to 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 lay out to determine the type of text, exploiting cognates (i.e. words
which are similar in the mother tongue and the target language) etc. A focus on
specific subject registers in unnecessary in this approach, because the underlying
processes are not specific to any subject registers.

A learning-centered approach

Our concern is with language learning. We cannot simply assume that describing
and exemplifying what people do with language will enable someone to learn it. A
truly valid approach to ESP must be based on an understanding of the processes of
language learning.

III. CONCLUSION

In this section we have identified the main factors in the origins of ESP and given a
brief overview of its development. We have note that the linguistic factor has
tended to dominate this development with an emphasis on the analysis of the
nature of specific varieties of language use. Probably this have been a necessary
stage, but now there is a need for a wider view that focuses less of differences and
more on what various specialism have in common is that they are all primarily
concerned with communication and learning. ESP should properly be seen not as
any particular language product but as an approach to language teaching which is
directed by specific and apparent reason for learning.
 History, Growth, and Development Phases of ESP

History and Growth of ESP

Over the past 40 years ESP has grown up fast and become one of the important
approaches in English language teaching. In the beginning 1960s when ESP is
started, the way English teacher view the field of ESP today is far different than
the way they viewed it in the 1960s. In the 1960s ESP practitioners believed their
main job was to teach the technical vocabulary of a given field or profession. If
they were teaching nursing students, their task was to teach the learners the
medical vocabulary of nursing. Later, teachers of ESP began to recognize the
importance of sub-technical vocabulary, that is, the words and phrases that
surround the technical words.
In 1970s, Hutchinson and Waters first introduced the idea of learning English
through content of a subject (e.g. Economics or management). By the 1980s, in
many parts of the world, a needs-based philosophy appeared in language teaching.
Many students learnt ESP not because they were merely willing to know English
but rather to do a task in English. There then emerged some specific disciplines:
English for Law, English for Hotel Industry, English for Tourist Management,
English for Marketing, and English for Banking.
Krashen in 1981 came up with “natural language acquisition idea” which then
supports the ESP approach. It is said that the best way in learning a language is to
use it for meaningful aims. In response to the meaningful aims in learning English,
various application of ESP have appeared: EAP (English for Academic Purpose),
CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), CBI (Content-based
Instruction), andTBL (Task-based Learning).
CLIL is an approach for learning content through an additional language (foreign
or second), thus teaching both the subject and the language. Many experts
considered CLIL a great way in learning English which give the learners with
meaningful input and authentic suggested.
CBI, another application, is designed to provide second-language learners
instruction in the use of subject matter as a vehicle for second or foreign
language teaching/learning (content) and language.
The next application of ESP is TBL also knwn Task-based language
learning (TBLL) or task-based language teaching (TBLT) focuses on the
use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks
using the target language. Such tasks can include visiting a doctor,
conducting an interview, or calling customer service for help. Assessment
is primarily based on task outcome (in other words the appropriate
 completion of tasks) rather than on accuracy of language forms. This
makes TBLL especially popular for developing target language fluency and
student confidence.

PHASES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESP

Hutchinson and Waters (1987:9) state that the early beginnings of E.S.P. start in
the 1960s and that this domain of theory and practice in the undergone five
phases.
1. Register analysis
In the register analysis phase the language teachers’ aim at the time was to identify
lexical and grammatical features of these registers. The teaching materials focused
on these linguistic features which represented the syllabus. Now that a first stage in
the exploration of English has reached its terminal point, namely the study of the
word structure down to its smallest lexical component, the E.S.P. teachers decide it
is time to move on to a new linguistic level, the sentence.
The criticisms against register analysis were:
 It restricts the analysis of text to the word and sentence level
 It is only descriptive, not explanatory
 Most materials produced under the banner of register analysis follow a similar
pattern, beginning with a long specialist reading passage which lacks authenticity.

2. Rhetorical and discourse analysis

The 1980s recorded a step ahead in the approach to ESP, withLouis Trimble’s
(1985) EST: A Discourse Approach, CUP.
The priorities, for this decade, mean:
 understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce meaning
 To identify the organizational patterns in texts
 To specify the linguistic means by which these patterns are signaled. All these
patterns represented the syllabus.

3. Target situation analysis

The target situation analysis is also known as the learner-centered approach. In this
phase, ESP was based on the reasons why student learnt English. The purpose of
an E.S.P. course focused on target situation analysis 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
 to identify the target situation
 to carry out a rigorous analysis of its linguistic features
4. Analysis of study 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
enable learners to extract meaning from discourse.
The focus should be on the underlying interpretive strategies which enable learners
to cope with the surface forms:
 guessing the meaning of words form context;
 using visual layout to determine the type of text;
 exploiting cognates (i.e., words which ar e similar in the mother tongue
and the target language)
This approach generally concentrates on reading and 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.

5. Analysis of learning needs (a learning-centered approach)

This is the next stage of ESP development: the learning-centered approach. It
involves considering the process of learning and student motivation, working out
what is needed to enable students to reach the target, exploiting in the EOP/EAP
classroom skills which students develop from their specific academic study and
taking into account the fact that different students learn in different ways.

REFRENCES

1. http//www.esp journal.com
2. Wilkins,D.A.,National Syllabuses,Oxford University Press,1976
3. Swales,J.,Writing Sientific English, Nelson,1971
4. Carver, D. (1983). Some propositions about ESP.
5. The ESP Journal, 2, 131-137.Dudley-Evans, T. & St. John, M. (1998).
6. Developments in ESP: A multi-disciplinary Approach.
7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8. Gatehouse, K. (2001). Key issues in English for specific purposes (ESP)
Curriculum. The Internet TESL Journal, 7,1-11.
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

1. Can ESP (English for Specific Purpose) serve as a tool to develop communicative competence in
Law students?

2. Cite a sample professional problem to be used in ESP course in the field of Law.

3. How can needs analysis identification in ESP impact learners’ interests in learning English?

4. Is ESP teaching limited to reading comprehension?

5. Explain the 3 absolute characteristics of ESP.

NOTE..

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