: John Hamilton Sepúlveda Alzate

12 Principles to promote an interactive ESP class

What kind of teacher am I? What kind of

students I have? What’s my context? These
are questions we make everyday, but the
real question is? Am I prepared to apply an
important approach in my context? Or
Maybe, Do I have the necessary experience
to teach in a specific context of students?

The knowledge and the experience are very

important when you are trying to teach,
since you are confident and you can make
to fell it to others ones. When your context
is at the University, the Micro – curriculum
is ESP and you have 40 or even 50 students
you are a magician, you must be
motivating, aware with the number of
students, amiable and the most important
you decide if you want to be strict or
permissive, however, it depends of your
contact with the group and your class
management.

On the other hand, what is the most

appropriate approach to teach ESP?
Actually, it’s not too easy, because it differs
of the teaching by principles, in other
words, you need knowing these principles
to establish your own theory. The principles
could apply in ESP, starting with: the
Automaticity, since it’s very common the
students analyze the grammar structures to
interpret technical texts. Another one is the
Meaningful learning, in this part ESP
teacher must be able to lead the students
through meaningful activities where they
apply their work experiences, such as
manuals, role plays about real situations,
etc. Furthermore rote learning, ESP

teachers could work others principles like

the Anticipation of reward and the Intrinsic
motivation together, because the students
have a lot of needs to learn and the majority
of them love to be motivated and being
recognized like good students in front of
others. An example is when the students
participate with a technical English exercise
and teacher congratulates them in front their
classmates. Although is important teachers
can direct Ss in a principle of strategic
investment, where they plan how to study
English. Otherwise teachers must have in
account the Language culture connections
because most of students in Esp have the
costumes of practicing English with
technical terminology related with their
career, is to say, teacher must be aware of it
and to try of knowing a little more their Ss.
Some of them speak in English through
slangs for instance what’s up.

It’s natural students, who are learning ESP,

use L1 to understand technical texts or to
interpret graphics where English is
included. Sometimes they want the English
spoken can be translated into Spanish
language, but it’s not recommendable. On
the other hand, teachers must know is
necessary to try different activities since
students learn in different ways; for
example teachers can use reading
comprehension taking into account
skimming and scanning strategies, also can
use authentic material to practice glossary
or the topic’s been seen. For example
teacher explains a topic related with circuits
through of wires, lookup tables, capacitors,
led diode, etc.

Finally, ESP instructions need to ensure

that learners develop both a rich repertoire
of formulaic expressions and a rule-based
competence, also to ensure that learners
focus predominantly on meaning, on form
and needs to be directed at developing
implicit knowledge of the L2 while not
neglecting explicit knowledge, even,
Instruction needs to take into account
learners’ “built-in syllabus”, in a similar
way is important to know the successful
instructed language learning requires
extensive L2 input, opportunities for output,
and to understand that interaction in the L2
is central to develop L2 proficiency.
Instruction needs must be focused in the
individual differences of learners where
ESP teachers cater activities to students’
different learning styles in this case teachers
are responsible for students’ intrinsic
motivation.

In conclusion teachers must transform their

classes in a place of interaction where the
students have the opportunity to perform
and produce the English language in real
contexts of their daily life.

Summary

ESP Teachers can face challenges in

implementing new alternative approaches
and feel frustrated by constraints perceived
to be outside their control. Therefore
General principles proposed for guiding L2
acquisition have also been considered in
terms of their applicability in a variety of
language learning and teaching settings.
ESP Teachers` perceptions of the
applicability to their contexts indicate that
contextual constraints would impede the
application of some of the principles, but
that an awareness of them may give EFL
teachers a sense of engaging in self-
reflection and praxis, despite wider socio -
cultural constraints. The teacher functions
as a facilitator or guide, supporting learners
as they try out new language and giving
feedback on errors as a necessary step in the
language learning process (Nunan, 1991;
Richards, 2001). Using an integrated skills
approach, many activities are done in pairs
or small groups, so learners have
opportunities to use the target language in a
variety of roles and contexts that aim to
approximate authentic situations to develop

learners’ situationally appropriate use of the

L2 (Richards & Rodgers, 2001).
General principles for effective instructed
second language learning proposed by
(Ellis, 2005).

Bibliography

Nunan, 1991 - Richards, 2001 Language

learning process

Richards & Rodgers, 2001 Use of the L2

Ellis, 2005 General principles for effective

instructed second language learning