Feature

The ESP Advocacy

Dr Binoy Barman

ESP! Don't confuse it with 'extra sensory perception', which the abbreviation normally refers to. It has a special meaning for those who are engaged in English language teaching. Special indeed! ESP means English for Special/Specific Purpose. It is a special kind of ELT programme this is how it is perceived by the teaching community. It does not involve any extraordinary perception, although the conception may sound extraordinary.

ESP is principally used for the students who are studying subjects other than English at the tertiary level. An ESP course is designed in such a way that it meets up the special needs of the students of a particular discipline. An ESP course is therefore thought to be more effective than a general course of English language. But what happens in our country is that a general English course, instead of a special one, is often used, mainly because of the poor vision of the syllabus or curriculum planners. In different universities it is usually observed that a student of science or business undergoes a general course of English when he/she badly needs an ESP course. This is in fact a national problem in higher education. We should therefore pay more attention to the resolution of the problem, as being unresolved, it causes huge waste of time and effort of the students as well as the institutions.

The most familiar forms of ESP are English for Business (EB), English for Science and Technology (EST), and English for Academic Purpose (EAP). These can be broken down into more subject-specific courses. For example, EB can be branched into English for Management, Marketing, Finance, Accounting or Economics, and EST can be branched into English for Medicine, Pharmacy, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Computer Science, Architecture, Engineering and so on. It can embrace even more specificity. In the case of EB, English can be for trading, banking, share market, wholesale and retailing, demand and supply, transport, etc.

English for trading can again be more specific internal trading and external trading, the latter involving export and import. Similarly, in the case of EST, say, Mathematics, English can be separate for Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and Statistics. English for Geometry can again be more specific according to its different branches Analytic, Differential, Euclidean and Non-Euclidean, etc. The more specific the subject, the more specific the English language course. And more useful it is for particular group of students.

Why only business and science? An ESP course may be designed for any subject in Humanities and Social Sciences as well. There may be English for Literature, Philosophy, Theology, Journalism, Law, Fine Arts, Politics, Public Administration or Governance. Even ESP is possible for performing arts such as drama, music, dance and sports. This kind of ESP course not only enhances students' knowledge of English language but also boosts up their understanding of the particular subject they are studying as major. The students will learn vocabulary and structures deeply concerned with their subjects and will have better and quicker access to the higher-level ideas, cumulatively complicated in any field of study.

ESP takes special care of the academic and communicative needs of learners. Linguistic needs differ from one learner group to another if they are pursuing different subjects. As the syllabus and teaching programme are based on the actual needs of the learners, ESP yields better results than the general-purpose English courses.

All the subject-specific ESP courses we have talked about so far are devoted to academic purposes. The ESP courses can also be exploited for professional purposes. We can think of professional groups such as bureaucrats, businessmen, engineers, physicians, lawyers, drivers, cooks and salespersons. If we look to offices we can even find sub-groups of professionals managers, secretaries, customer relations officers, public relations officers, clerks, telephone operators, computer operators, etc. All of them have their special needs of language, very special indeed. Separate courses can be designed for them and utilised for quick success, helping them to enhance their career.

In the academic arena there are many problems getting in the way of implementing ESP courses here. The first problem is the lack of teachers who are specially trained in ESP. An ESP teacher is not only an expert in English language but also sufficiently knowledgeable about a particular subject other than English, say, business or medicine, broadly speaking. But the combination of expertise in English language and other subject is really rare in our country. Now, a teacher of general English may come forward to face the challenge of ESP. He/she may self-study and self-train to become a skilled ESP teacher. In this case he/she may take the help of a subject specialist, and it will not be very difficult for him/her to get a colleague in the staff room handy. But he/she may find it difficult to overcome the other problem collection of course materials.

Necessary books and journals on ESP are not easily available in the country. But a ray of hope, internet helps a lot in this matter, giving information on ESP books and extracting standard materials from the search of different websites.

I guess there may be attempts to solve the problem of manufacturing ESP teachers from the other way round. The special subject teachers can be trained in English language, making themselves aware of the words and structures pertaining to their subjects. After successful training, they will be subject teachers plus language teachers. As such, they can take the role of ESP teachers, teaching students not only their subjects but also especially required English. But the role of subject teachers taking up the job of ESP will need institutional recognition, giving due consideration to their pay and position. Otherwise nobody will come into the venture.

Practically, most crucial is the decision of the institution authorities at the tertiary level of education. Having crossed the long passage of secondary and higher secondary schooling, students probably do not need general English, but special English. Only the authorities can decide whether an ESP course will be introduced instead of a general English course. They may hire ESP experts from abroad, or they may arrange ESP training for the general English language teachers and, may be, subject teachers. If the authorities are sincere, they can create a congenial atmosphere, from which undoubtedly the students will derive the maximum benefits.