A critical view of Tony Dudley-Evans on English for Specific Purposes

Assignment topic: A critical view of Tony Dudley-Evans on English for Specific Purposes

Name: Jinal B. Parmar

Roll no.: 11

M. A. Semester: 3

Paper no.: 12 English Language Teaching-1

Year: 2014-15

PG Enrolment no: PG13101025

Submitted to: Department of English

Smt. S. B. Gardi

Maharaja Krishnakumar sinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction:

Tony Dudley – Evans

             Tony Dudley – Evans was for many years a British linguist and expert in English for Specific Purposes. He is one of the most influence authors in the development of the modern notion of genre; he is usually grouped together with John Swales and Vijay Bhatia as the driving force behind recent development in English for Specific Purposes.

Introduction:

English for Specific Purposes

              English for Specific Purposes or English for Special Purposes has for about 30 years been a separate branch of English Language Teaching. ESP has developed its own approaches, materials and methodology and its generally seen as a very active, even ‘feisty’ movement that has had considerable influence over the more general activities of TESOL – (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) and applied linguistics,

Definition:

English for Specific Purposes

              English for Specific Purposes is a subdivision of a wider field, language for Specific Purposes, which is defined as:

“……the area of inquiry and practice in the development of language programs for people who need a language to meet a predictable range of communicative needs”

             English for Specific Purposes arose as a term in the 1960s as it became increasingly aware that general English courses frequently did not meet learner or employers needs. ESP involves teaching and learning the specific skills and language needed by particular learners for particular purposes.

            In ESP in that P is always a professional purposes a set of skill that learners currently need in their work or will need in their professional careers. This ESP can be taken to include business skills, such as English for Job finding or Presentation. Many of the learners prefer this specific English to learn.

             Now-a-days many of the Universities across the globe are offering a number of ESP course. For example

              Dudley-Evans says that the key defining feature of ESP is that it’s teaching and materials are founded on the results of Needs Analysis.

“Needs Analysis is fundamental to an EAP- (English for Academic Purposes) approach to course design and teaching”

               In ESP course there is concern about student’s skill to learn English, which genres do they used or need to master. ESP is totally opposed from the ‘General English’. In ESP one can be more precise about learner’s need, their needs are defined by a learning or occupational situation in which English plays a key role. In learning of English specific needs can be identified by examining that situation and the texts in detail, in contrast means in the learning of general English for students not immediately using English.

Robinson gives her first overview of ESP, and she suggested that limited duration and adult learners are defining features of ESP courses. In this she says that limited duration to learn ESP it means an intensive course of a fixed length and also says that these type of ESP courses learners are always Adult who grown up their learning easily. Robinson in her second survey, she accepts that, many of the ESP courses are of limited duration, a significant number are not there for example,

“A three or four year programs as part of a university degree”

             The majority of ESP learners are adults ESP can be taught at school in English medium schools where English is not the children’s first language. ESP is generally taught to intermediate or advanced students of English but can also be taught beginners.

             Dudley-Evans adds his idea also to in ESP it may be designed for specific discipline or professions. He is also says about teaching methodology of ESP courses. He says that SEP teachers must aware and knowledgeable about specific English or subject knowledge, which leads to classroom interaction and teaching methodology that can be totally different from General English. In ESP courses, sometimes learner faces difficult situation for example, pre – work or pre – study courses where learners have not started their academic or professional activity and therefore have less subject knowledge for them teaching methodology will be similar to that of General English.

              In the learning of ESP and General English there are vast differences in grammar level and also in teaching level. There are major differences between ESP English and General English.

             There are the major differences between ESP English and General English but there are also some common thing in both of the these ESP English and General English.

Common things in both ESP English and General English:

Testing for English for Specific Purposes:

There are three views of ESP testing

•         In the field of ESP testing has been as a separate and distinctive part of a more general movement of English language testing, focusing on measuring specific uses of English language among identified groups  of people such as , doctors, nurses, lawyers , civil engineers, tour guides, air traffic controllers, and others 

•         ESP testing has been viewed in the broader context of the teaching and learning process. According to Dudley-Evans and St. John assessment does not stand alone but occupies a prominent place in the ESP process, giving an ESP teacher a wealth of information on the effectiveness and quality of learning and teaching. As assessment interacts with needs analysis and is dependent on syllabus design.

•         In ESP tests enhance the learning process and act as a learning device. In the words of Dudley-Evans and St. John an ESP test is “an aid to learning”. Moreover assessment evaluates the benefits of learning; tests can give learners a sense of accomplishment and a feeling that the teacher’s evaluation matches what skills and knowledge have been covered. Dudley-Evans and St. John add that assessment “encompasses benefits such as reinforcement, confidence building, involvement and building on strengths”.

                Dudley- Evans defining the features of ESP looking closely at ‘Specific Purposes’, ESP materials will always draw on the topics and activities of that specific purpose, in many cases exploiting the methodology of the subjects area or the profession. For example, student of engineering they study an English course for engineer will use engineering situations to present relevant language and discourse, problem-solving activities will probably also be used, since they drew on skills and abilities possessed by the students.

              Similarly, a business English course will use studies as these are widely used in business training. ESP is concerned with teaching language, discourse and relevant communication skills:it exploits topics and the underlying methodology of the target discipline or profession to present language, discourse and skills.

Dudley-Evans sees the absolute characteristics of ESP:

The variable characteristics are:

·        ESP may be related to or designed for specific discipline.

·        ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of General English.

·        ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners either at a tertiary level institution or in professional work situation. It could, however be used for learners at secondary school level.

·        ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners.

Subject specific ESP:

             ESP is often divided up into various categories with mysterious acronyms. It is usually classified into two categories EAP and ESP.

              English for Academic Purpose largely for itself it relates to the English needed in an educational context, usually at university or similar institution, and possibly also at school level.

             English for Occupational Purposes is very complicated it relates to the professional purposes for example, those of working doctors, engineers or business people. The biggest branch of English for occupational purposes is business English. In business people use to high language to communication. In this EOP the teaching general business related vocabulary to the teaching of specific skills important in business, e.g. negotiation and meeting skills.

            In ESP another key distinction is between more general ESP and more specific ESP Dudley-Evans and St. John drawing on an idea from George Blue – make a distinction between English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP). Designed for pro-study groups, or groups that are heterogeneous with regard to discipline and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) designed to meet specific needs of a group from the same discipline.

              A similar distinction can be made between the teaching of general business related language and skills (English for General Business Purposes – EGBP) and the teaching of specific business language for skill such as negotiation, or the writing of letters or faxes (English for Specific Business Purposes – ESBP)

             In ESP it is often convenient to refer to types of ESAP or ESBP by profession, so one commonly hears terms such as quick medical English, English for engineers or English for administration. These terms may be useful as a quick classification, but may lead to confusion.

             Medical English may include EAP for students following a degree course in medicine where English is the medium of instruction, or a reading skill course where the subjects taught in a language other than English but also a type of EOP for practicing doctors using English to talk to patients or to write up research in English.

               In same way English for engineers may be for students of engineering, or for practicing engineers needing, say, to write reports in English. In the USA, ESAP is often called “content- based instruction (CBI)”, which is seen as separate from ESP.

                In ELT these all types of specific courses is totally separate from General English. In ESP two other commonly used abbreviations are EST (English for Science and Technology) which was widely used when most EAP teaching was for students of engineering and science. It is thus a branch of EAP. In the USA, EVP (English for Vocational Purposes) is frequently used for teaching English for specific trades or vocations. This branch of EOP is often subdivided into Vocational English (concerning language and skills needed in a job) and pre-vocational English (concerning skills needed for applying for jobs and being interviewed).

Needs Analysis

“Needs analysis also known as needs assessment and it has vital role in the process of designing and carrying out any language courses, whether it be English for Specific Purposes or General English course.”

             The initial needs analysis provides information about target situation what learners will have to do in English and the skills and language needed. This is generally called “Target Situation Analysis.”

“The term Target Situation Analysis was infect, first used by Chambers in his 1980 article in which he tried to clarify the confusion of terminology. For Chambers TSA is “communication in the target situation”.

              In ESP there is always be the first step is needs analysis it is usually the next stage that involves the most detailed analysis, and there has been increasing emphasis on investigating these increasing emphasis on investigating these additional factors. Information about the learners – in particular their level in English, weaknesses in language and skills needed and also their own perceptions of what they need are increasingly investigated. In TSA we find that learner’s objective need to understand the lecture.

              Learning Situation Analysis is totally different and opposed to the TSA. In this LSA there is need to study the learner’s confidence or lack of confidence in their listening abilities, and their perception that they need more vocabulary to understand lectures is subjective. This investigation of subjectivity is called “Learning Situation Analysis”.

            The investigation of learner’s weaknesses or lucks is called “Present Situation Analysis”. As Dudley-Evans and St. John state “A present Situation Analysis estimates strengths and weaknesses in language, skill, learning experiences”.  If the destination point to which the students need to get is to be established, first the starting point has to be defined, and this is provided by means of PSA.

Dudley-Evans and St. John suggest that means analysis provides us “information about environment in which the course will be run” and thus attempts to adapt to ESP course to the cultural environment in which it will be run one of the main issues means analysis is concerned with is an “acknowledgement that what in works well in one situation may not work in another”. For example, if learners are used to rote-learning, it may be that a problem-solving approach to learning ESP will be alien to their learning styles and contrary to their expectations.

The Need for Text Analysis:

                In this entire article Dudley-Evans’s ESP much priority is given to needs analysis and the various approaches. Dudley-Evans believes that the key stage in ESP course design and, materials development is the action needed following this needs analysis stage. This next stage is when the ESP teacher considered the texts that the learner has to produce and understand, tries to identify the text’s key features and devises teaching materials that will enable learners to use the texts effectively.

               In early work in ESP genre analysis placed the focus on ‘moves’, i.e. how the writer structures a text or part of a text through a series of stratagems. Masuku argues that moves and genres are elements of discourse and that the difference between them is that moves combine to form genres. At a rank below the move ‘we enter the domain of grammar’.

               A move may be defined as “a meaningful unit represented in linguistic forms and related to the communicative purpose of the social activity in which members of the discourse community are engaged.”

ESP school is considering higher level issues, research using corpora and concordancing techniques has linked genre analysis with phraseological studies. Gledhill introduces the medical article about cancer research use a limited and predictable phraseology. This phraseology can be established by examining the collocation of high-frequency grammatical items. This research has great potential, esp. the potential of relating the more general findings of genre analysis to specific language use, and thus to materials production.

             The current growth area in ESP concern with the discourse community’s work is also characteristic of the teaching of business English. Needs analysis in business English must establish exactly how the discourse community uses language and text, and the effect of culture on the way that discourse is structured.

               Dudley-Evans argued that ESP is a materials-led field. Most materials, however, are prepared by individual teacher for particular situation, and there is not a huge amount of published ESP material. In English for occupational purposes there are especially business English materials.

ESP Syllabus Design:

                 In ESP syllabus designing abilities like develops required in order to successfully communicate in occupational setting is the ability to use the particular jargon that is characteristic of the specific occupational context. The second is the ability to use a more generalized set of academic skills and the third is the ability to use the language of everyday informal talk to communicate effectively, regardless of occupational context.

              The task for the ESP developer is to ensure that all three abilities are integrated into the syllabus.

ESP syllabus design should cover the three factors:

 

Factors affecting ESP course design:

Conclusion

                  In conclusion I would like to threw some light on Dudley-Evans’s views regarding ESP. he argued for the importance of Genre analysis as applied research that leads the course designer from the initial needs analysis to materials production and lesson planning.

                Dudley-Evans suggested on the basis of research into the discourse and researchers can have an increased role as “Genre Doctors” advising discipline and professions on the effectiveness of their communication.

                 For the teachers and learners ESP is more challenging course because ESP has its own movement, its own journal and its own procedure.