How communicative is ESP?

Abstract

ESP (English for specific purposes) and the communicative approach are often thought to be closely related. However, the reality is somewhat different. Many of the principles and practices on which much current ESP is based are educationally unsound. In needs analysis, for example, the real views of the learners are seldom given due consideration. Traditional ESP course design has two major drawbacks: firstly, the development in the learner of a capacity to communicate is neglected, and secondly, there is a failure to analyse and take into account the realities of the ESP learning situation. A typical consequence of this is that ESP teachers are often put in the untenable position of having to teach from texts whose subject-matter they do not understand. Furthermore, in most ESP materials, the learner is presented with uninspiring content and language exercises which lack any clear communication focus. As a result, ESP is, at present, a rather un-communicative form of language teaching. In this paper, therefore, we will present our ideas for making ESP more learning-centred, and, thereby, more communicative.1

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 56 citations exist upstream.