Transcription
Hi, welcome to unit one. And not only that, but the very first part of unit one. And our goal this week is to become really clear about what ESP is, what English for Specific Purposes is, and how it's different from General English. So that's my goal. And, uh, I'm going to share with you some ideas that I have that'll add to and complement and supplement what you have in your textbook and some other materials I've placed online.
But, um, you're going to get kind of my perspective from having done it, watched it, observed it, and worked in it. And so the first thing to know about ESP, English for Specific Purposes, is there's a direct tie between the reason that students are learning English and something they want to do. And usually there's a tie between the students. So they all, all want to become engineers and use English for engineering, or they all want to be accepted into a pilot program and need to have a, um, a kind of English that pilots need. And so there is a shared purpose, usually, um, between the students. And it has to do with something they want to accomplish, um, either right now in their careers or their professions, or something that they want to do in the future.
And when students are learning General English, um, there's more of a sense of they simply want to learn English, or perhaps they want to learn it for a very general purpose, like to, um, simply be able to be at a US university, or to feel more comfortable living in the United States, or living in an English-speaking country, or, um, to have a s enough of a communicative sense of English that they can communicate with those tourists that they encounter. So it's more general and it's not as focused on a very specific either occupational or professional kind of focus. And so that's what, that's really the key difference. And what I'm going to do is to tease that out. What does that really look like? And the first thing I want to to do is to help you start to understand the spectrum of what ESP can look like and how it varies, how it differs from General English teaching. So let's take a look.
All right. So I've got this spectrum here. And over here it says it's abbreviated General ESL, EFL. So English as a Second Language, that's the S. English as a Foreign Language, that's the F. What's the difference? Very quickly, it has to do with what happens when students leave your classroom and go outside of the door. So there are international students here at at our university taking English classes. When they leave their ESL, their classes, their ESL classes, uh, they encounter English outside of the door. That makes it English as a Second Language for those students. Say in Mexico studying English. When they leave their English classroom and they step outside of the door, do they hear English? Probably not. They probably are going to hear Spanish. And so that is English as a Foreign Language. So we teach EFL overseas. We teach ESL in a, U, in an English-speaking country. So essentially, that's, that's the difference. So this is General ESL. This is General EFL. And this is where we, our ideas usually land when we think about teaching overseas. But there's a lot of variety, a lot more variety. So this is a spectrum. And as we step over here to the right, we see that, um, there's English for Specific Purposes that happen, that can happen before students are actually working. So this might look like in overseas universities. Many times there's an English requirement for students, say in engineering or mathematics or, um, some other field. And for those students, they're still university students, they're not out there in work yet, and they need to take some kind of English class. Well, there's two possibilities for an ESP class for them. One is in which all of the science and math students, for example, are put into one classroom. Some are headed off to be computer engineers, some electrical engineers, some mathematicians, some statisticians. So lots of variety of purposes there. And that would be, that would be this step on the spectrum. So it's, um, it's closer related to what we think of as General ESL, EFL. But the students do have a refined purpose, but there's variety in it. And they can't rely on their experience already of being out in the work world. So they can't say to the instructor, for example, well, yesterday you told us, um, that this is a good way to say this, but when I talked with a customer and I said it that way, they didn't understand me. So I, I need some other ways to do it. You don't get that kind of dialogue between student and teacher when it's pre-work.
Okay. So once again, here's General English teaching where, uh, mostly we think about when we think about teaching of English. And then there, I'll, I'll put a line here. And then there's ESP that's taught before students get out into the work world. Okay. And there's a big difference between these two pieces because here you have students headed off to lots of different possible jobs, professions. And there, there is some refined focus. Like this would be probably English focused on STEM. But if the only students you had in your classroom were computer engineering class students, now it's far more focused. And now your methods, your way of approaching teaching English is going to start to look drastically different from what you would find in a General ESL, EFL class. Why? Because you can find out how English really works for the specific purposes that your students have. For example, you might even find out that there's three principal employers who tend to hire the graduates from your university with this degree. You could, you could carry out a needs analysis with them and find out, um, what it is that they're looking for for in their new hires. What are some things that, that their employer employees can't do with English that they need them to be able to do? What are some things they can do with English that they're glad about? So you can reinforce those in the class. So once we get over to this point, it's still pre-work. The students still don't have a work experience that they can call upon and bring into the classroom. But there's a more refined purpose. And that gives you the ability to more specifically focus the course on what those students need.
Now, this line indicates that on this side, now what you have is you have ESP courses being given to students who are already out in the work world. So this says occupational. Right? And sometimes this is called English for Occupational Purposes, EOP. But our, I feel that our field already has way too many acronyms, and I'm not willing to take on anymore. So I simply call it occupational ESP. That's how I do it. So on this side, what you have is you have students who, they show up at your class, maybe at 12 at their lunch break, and at 1:00, they are back in their work world, whether that's in banking, in in accounting, working as engineers, working as therapists, working as doctors, whatever it is, they're back in the work world. And for the, on this side of the line, students can bring that experience directly into the classroom and should. And it should directly impact what you're doing in your classroom. So that you are far, far more likely on this side of this line to ask the students, okay, was anyone able to apply what we did yesterday? If someone says yes, you ask about it. And maybe you even build on an experience that they had. And you maybe let your class plan go, at least for the beginning, and you grab on to their experience and maybe some issues that they, that they had, and you teach from that. And so what the students are doing outside of the classroom comes in, impacts, shapes, and, um, and helps the students make sense of what they're learning.
Now, notice there's, there's two groups here, just like previously with ESP. And this is occupational ESP when there's a variety of purposes. So, for example, you might have a class that you teach every day at 7:00 AM because people begin work at 8:00. You might have a class that's ESP for employees of the tourism industry in the city that you're living in. So maybe you've got hotel employees and taxi drivers and tour guides and front desk people at hotels. So you've got quite a variety there of different, uh, ways that students are encountering tourism and supporting it and playing a role in it. And it, it is helping to keep them, keep their job. So that would be an example of a variety of purposes. And then, just like before, what we step over to the left to is a more focused purpose. So, an example of this would be English for taxi drivers, or English for hotel staff at one hotel. So what you have happening as you move across the spectrum is you have far more focused instruction. So the farther you get over here on the spectrum, the more you are able to focus your instruction not just on this particular field, this particular discipline, this particular use of English, but maybe even this particular hotel and in this particular city. So you're able to take a syllabus that's maybe general and make it very, very specific for these particular students who need to use English in these specific ways in this specific context text. So that's one of, one of the ways that things change.
Another way that things change is you have more and more needs analysis. Okay? So your course is more and more focused on what you found from talking with different stakeholders and experiencing the different situations. We tend to think of needs and analysis as having little, if any, uh, role in how we design our, our general English classes. But when you are over, especially over here, every single choice you make, every piece of material you put in front of students, every choice of activity, every piece of feedback, every assessment, it needs to come directly out of what these specific students need to do with English. And so that is a big change that you see. And along with that, the more we are paying attention to stakeholders. And stakeholders, you probably know this already, ready, but it comes from when, when the West was settled at first by European settlers, and there would be big contests. People would get a flag or a stake with their name in it. And people on the C, when they were told they could go, they would go and they would put a stake in the piece of property that they wished for themselves or for their family. And so stakeholders is this idea of you've got something to lose or something to gain by, um, by students succeeding in this class. So when we say stakeholders, we mean something more than just students taking the class. So, for example, if you were in the best of all per, I think situations with ESP, you were teaching, say, uh, restaurant workers for one particular restaurant, then you would be talking with customers, you would be talking with the employers, you would be talking with the employees themselves. You'd maybe be talking even outside of that, if you could think of others that you should be, uh, connecting with. And, um, and so that's why we are far more focused on stakeholders as you move from General English over to extremely focused ESP.
Um, another, another way, uh, that things change as you move across here is we need to focus more. I haven't written this very well, but we need to focus more on authentic texts. The, um, with ESP and the more specific the ESP situation, and the more that students can call upon their own work experiences, the more that you're putting things in front of students, they need to be authentic. They need to be not a textbook, usually, but they need to be actual conversations, actual documents, real emails that a front desk receives, um, when English-speaking customers are requesting a room or a room change or an amenity, that kind of thing. And so as you move from General English, which typically uses commercial textbooks, less and less are those relevant. And more and more, if you're required to or you choose to use a commercial textbook, more and more you would need to rely on some other text as well.
Okay. Um, any other key things I want to say? Another, although we, we always say that our teaching should be student-focused, as you move here across this spectrum, more and more it is student-focused. And that means that we are more and more willing to change the course, change the syllabus, change the day's plan, change an activity because of student needs. And so you, in an ESP class, you might come in with a great plan. It builds directly off of where yesterday's class left. And yet, it becomes clear your students need something else today. And so you would be more likely at this far end of the scale to let your plan go and just respond to what students need, then you would here with just general English teaching. So that's a key way that things change.
Um, there's a term that comes up in your textbook, and I want to, uh, share that with you so we can start to make sense of it together. Um, there's the term wide lens, narrow lens, or sometimes we say wide focus or narrow focus. And, and both of those types of terms come up when we talk about ESP. And, and let's talk about the difference. Wide lens means you're not as focused. You are, um, you're looking at the generalities. Okay? So, for example, when we look at ESP, both of these would be at a university. But ESP for those, those university students who haven't entered the work world yet, this one, there's a, a variety of purposes. The example I gave, uh, to you is students who are in the STEM field and they need to be able to use English in their field. So everybody in there has a slightly different purpose than the students sitting on either side of them. Whereas here, this is a university class in which all the students have a shared purpose. And the example I gave is they're all going to be computer engineers and they all need to use English for computer engineering. This, when the, the instructor is designing the course, they would use more of what's called a wide lens or a wide focus. And here they would use more of what's called a narrow lens or a narrow focus. And what this means is that you are more targeting the grammar, the vocabulary, um, how politeness is shown in conversations, um, how emails are carried out. You would be more focused, and you would be able to give students more evidence of how English is actually used in specific ways in their field. And here it would be a wider view. So it would be in general, when we talk about science, when we talk about scientific specific ideas, how do we use English? Which tenses do we use? So it would be a wider focus. Whereas when you have the more, the students in the classroom share one purpose, the more likely that is to happen, the more you can narrow that focus of the class and narrow that lens. And so those are some key terms when we talk about ESP and how it, um, how it plays out, especially in terms of how it, it's different from General ESL or EFL.
So where I'd like to go next is let's look, let's do a t-chart and let's take a look at the differences between General English and English for Specific Purposes. So one key thing that you will see, um, and hear us talking about and experience us discussing in the discussion is that when we're teaching General English, we're trying to build up kind of a, a basic foundation for students. So it's this idea that, well, if you're going to use English, you need to know these tenses. You need to have a vocabulary, the most common words, 200 words. So it's this idea of what needs to be in your bucket if you are just going to use, be an English user. So it's a basic foundation. And, and it tends to teach grammar and vocab, um, in terms of basic needs. And if you look, as you probably already have, if you look at basic textbooks for Spanish or English or, uh, whatever, you will see some of the very same topics playing out in the first few units. The language of clothing, the language of colors, the language of numbers, the language of furniture, the language of rooms in the house, the language of travel, right? Those are basic needs. And the idea is that you teach these things almost just in case it's needed, right? Just in case it's needed. So, um, there, it's a, it's a handling of grammar not because students need it right now, or because you can give specific examples of situations that they'll need it, but because, well, if you're going to be an English user, this just has to be in your bucket. This needs to be something that, that you, you use. And that's very different from English for Specific Purposes. If you were truly teaching ESP in an ESP pedagogy, then every grammar point and every vocabulary item is directly because of need. So you wouldn't teach the past tense on Tuesday just because it's Tuesday and the syllabus says to teach past tense. The only reason you would teach past tense in an English for Specific Purposes is because the communicative task that we're doing today, which is a communicative task that these students will need in their future work or in their, their work this afternoon, whether it's pre-work or occupational, they need the past tense, right? So here you teach the past tense because, well, everybody kind of needs the past tense, right? If you use English, you need the past tense. Here, the only reason you would, you would teach the past tense is because it's directly needed by students to carry out a specific communicative task that they need for their work, either their future work or, um, their current work. So that is a huge difference. And we'll take a closer look at that when we talk about pedagogy as well.
Um, another thing that's very different is that when someone designs a General English class, they are usually designing it by instinct. They're designing it around what they think students need to learn. And so it's very much self-referencing. The instructor just needs to think, they just need to look at the materials that they have to teach with and reflect on their own experience with language learners and the use of English. And so it's completely self, self-referencing. And usually it's designed on instinct alone. Whereas English for Specific Purposes, every choice made in the class should come from some type of needs analysis. Now, when we looked at the spectrum at the far left for university students, especially those there's a variety of purposes, it's very possible that the instructor does a lot of needs analysis in their mind. So, for example, if they're preparing students in a tourism university tourism program, and they're all headed out to work in hotel management, maybe the instructor spends some time thinking about, um, what have their experiences been as they've, um, been at front desks and what kind of English was needed? What kinds of questions do, uh, managers tend to need to ask customers or clients? And what kinds of questions are asked of managers? What kinds of problems come up? So even though General English is entirely based on instinct, and ESP is entirely based on needs analysis, there is a little bit of crossover in that some of the needs analysis that might occur, especially for the pre-work students, might be in the instructor's head, kind of like thought experiments, thinking through, if I were to go and check into a hotel tonight, who would talk to me? What kinds of things would they say to me? Tell me what kinds of things would they ask me? And then thinking about what is the English that's needed for that to support those activities. And so that is a huge difference between the two.
Um, another, another difference between the two is that in General English classes, when you walk into the classroom, the way you see students interacting, the way you see students interacting with the instructor, the way you see students, um, desk set up, it very much looks like a typical classroom. With ESP, especially as you move across that spectrum, the more students are actually focused on a specific job or a specific profession, a specific occupation, the more it looks like a work environment. So what I mean by this, this is that if you are working with students who are preparing to work in hotels, and the most likely job for them, at least at the beginning, is to work at the front desk as they work their way up through management, well, what kinds of interactions happen at the front desk? Most of the time, they are one-on-one. It's the front desk person with, uh, a customer, a client, a guest. And even if it's a family or a group, usually it's one person speaking for that group. And so you would expect in an ESP classroom then that was preparing people to work at the front desk of a hotel, you would expect that the classroom itself would look more and more like the work environment. So that there would be lots and lots of role plays. So if I were, say, a year from now, to walk into your ESP class, I would be less likely to see you lecturing to the students. I'd be less likely to see students sitting, um, at tables facing the front. I would be more likely to see what's happening in your classroom looks like what the student will do with it, whether that's one-on-one, whether that's small groups, whatever it is that you're preparing them for, more and more the ESP classroom looks like the work environment itself and supports those social, uh, relationships as well.
Um, any last things that I want to bring up? I would say that probably in your mind, you're thinking that for you to be a good teacher, for you to be an effective teacher, that means that you've planned well and you have an excellent plan for the course. You have an excellent plan for every class time. And so I would say that most of us assume when we teach a General English class that we walk in with a lesson plan, a very well-thought-out lesson plan, very reflective, and we carry it out. And maybe even we carry out reflection afterwards to think about, okay, next year or next time when I teach this, what could I do a little bit differently to improve it? How could I extend it a little bit? That kind of thing. So with General English classes, we tend to think about the focus on planning. And we tend to, um, kind of put our efforts into that planning. And obviously, it's a great thing. It's a wonderful thing. But when you're teaching English for Specific Purposes, especially once you are teaching students who are already employees in the field that they're working in, once you were doing that, then a lot of what's happening in the class is responding. And so you might walk in with a fantastic plan for fantastic activities that look like the work environment, that come directly out of needs analysis that you carried out. But when students walk in, they're somewhere else. They're thinking about another issue, or maybe something has happened for one or more of them that they've got this idea, they need to know this, how to do this in English. And so you would let the plan go and instead you would focus on responding.
Long ago, I read when, when I was early in my career, that with teaching, there are, there's kind of two different modes. And part of teaching is like, uh, a surgical center, right? A, a room that surgery occurs in, and it's extremely, uh, um, well-designed. Everything, everything that you need is laid out. It's perfectly laid out. It's, it's laid out even in terms of, uh, the chronological order that you'll need things. What occurs in the classroom is methodical. It's part of a, a process that's been planned out. And it's kind of quiet and very, very kind of well-managed. So part of what we do as teachers is like carrying out surgery. But there's this other part too, and it's more like the emergency room. And suddenly the doors burst open, and in come three patients. We have no idea what's wrong with them. We need to figure, figure out what's wrong with them. We need to respond right now. In fact, we needed to respond five minutes ago. And so there are these two parts of teaching, that which is like, um, uh, the room surgery happens in, and that which is more like an emergency room. And that might be useful for us to kind of start to get at some traction on the differences between here with General English. I think more often than not, it looks like, um, the room surgery would happen in. It's very well planned out. Not that instructors aren't reply, you know, kind of responding on the fly to students as they need, of course they are, but most of the time it's well-managed, well-thought-out, well-planned, and very smooth. And what you tend to have in an ESP classroom, especially the farther over that spectrum as you go, the more that students are involved in work already, the more focused they are together as a group on one certain occupation, one, even maybe one specific employer, the more it looks like an emergency room in which you don't know what's coming through the door. You respond as things come through the door. You respond well. You meet needs. And, um, and you get people on their way again so that they are successful in their careers.
So I hope that this helped you start to get a real sense of how ESP is different across a spectrum. It's not just one thing, but I hope I've pulled that out for you. And I hope you start to see the differences between General English and ESP. Okay, see you online with the activities and the discussion.