TEACHING ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

TASK3. Variables for designing an ESP course

STUDENT.

Harold Bonilla Cod: 1076221144

TUTOR.

Clara Esperanza Bilbao

GROUP:

551038_1

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

Bachelor’s degree as a foreign language in English

April 2021
 Scenario

A university student from an English Bachelor program in Colombia wishes to hire

an English teacher to prepare her for a language test. This student already has an English

level of B1 and is highly motivated to graduate as soon as possible, but she lacks the ability

in the receptive skills of listening and reading comprehension. Therefore, she wants the

tutor to help her prepare on these two areas for the exam to achieve at least a B2 level.

Argumentative essay

Introduction

Improve our English skills in the learning process could be a big experience for our

life because It is not an easy work. You have to practice a lot about reading, listening,

writing and speaking to improve and be a better student or teacher. In the case of a student

who needs to improve the level from B1 to B2, she has to take into account her favorite

activities, kind of learning and obviously time for study and learn.

The student has a B1 level, else, she wishes to improve her receptive listening and

reading comprehension skills. Different authors affirm the importance to identify the

knowledge that the students have and the difficulties that arise, this allows the clear

development of educational resources that contribute to such purposes. Hutchinson &

Waters (1987) ‘you also need to know what the learner knows already, so that you can then
decide which of the necessities the learner lacks’. According to the author, recognizing

what the student knows is important to match the needs he or she lacks and requires

complementing to achieve his or her goals.

On the other hand, the student has to remember all the variables that she has to take

into account at the moment of improve her reading and listening skills, for example: the

time that she has to study in a comfortable and quite place, her emotional part (motivation

for learning), maybe the economic factor and the tools or resources she has to study and

learn more to practice and improve the english level.

In addition, talking about the resources, it is important to mention that not always we

must have a lot of money to study in a specific place and improve the English skills. For

example, if in this case the student has the tutor’s support she can work with her teacher,

make questions, realize some works and researches about what she needs to improve.

Another important tool is the internet because there, all people can find a lot of games,

strategies, material, listenings, movies, videos to practice the skills. So, improve the English

level is not impossible if the student work hard, with time, and she wants she can.

Otherwise, for this case, the teacher has to plan and organize a ESP course to work

with this student, in this case the literal specific purpose for the classes will be: Improve the

listening and reading comprehension skills. So the teacher must look for the strategies and

tools that help the student to practice and learn in a meaningful way, not only for the exam,

it has to be a meaningful learning for all the learning and teaching English process.

The steps that teacher should follow could be: First, to know about the previous

knowledges of the student (strengths and weaknesses), the vocabulary, grammar and kind
of learning. Second, design the lesson plan that they are going to follow according the

previous knowledges and what the teacher is going to teach to the student. It should

include: topics, tools and strategies, practice or work (like homework) and the possible

support work or strategies that the teacher can use in the case that the student doesn’t

understand some topic or has any difficulty

After having implemented the methodology and the different strategies, the principle

on which ESP is based is recognized, Davies and Currie (19971) as cited in Hutchinson &

Waters (1987)put it 'A method which frustrates the predictions of the learner is patently

bad. Much of [the] satisfaction [of] learners will come when they feel that the hurdles, they

themselves have predicted have been cleared. ' (our brackets)’. Sometimes the ESP could

be considered as negative approach in the sense that the learners consider that their

principal difficulties aren’t carried out, however, these end up being surpassed by

themselves, that is to say, the ESP help to develop the different skills with the target of the

students will be who achieve their goals.

Like conclusion, is important to mention that a ESP course is not only responsibility

of the teacher, the student has to give a meaningful work and be patient with her own

process. There are a lot of strategies and there are a lot of ways to practice and improve the

English level.
 References

Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). Language descriptions. In English for Specific

Purposes (Cambridge Language Teaching Library, pp. 24-38). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511733031.008.

https://doiorg.bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/10.1017/CBO9780511733031.008

Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). Theories of learning. In English for Specific Purposes

(Cambridge Language Teaching Library, pp. 39-52). Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511733031.009.

https://doiorg.bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/10.1017/CBO9780511733031.009

Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). Needs analysis. In English for Specific Purposes

(Cambridge Language Teaching Library, pp. 53-64). Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511733031.010.

https://doiorg.bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/10.1017/CBO9780511733031.010

Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). Approaches to course design. In English for Specific

Purposes (Cambridge Language Teaching Library, pp. 65-78). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511733031.011.

https://doiorg.bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/10.1017/CBO9780511733031.011