Task 2.

Semuel Kuriake Balubun

NIM: 530043453

Article reviewed:
Marwan, Ardi. “ESP Teaching Challenges In An Indonesian Vocational Higher Institution”,
The English Teacher Vol. XXXVIII: 1 – 12

The article, “ESP Teaching Challenges in An Indonesian Vocational Higher

Institution”, by Ardi Marwan seeks to explore the challenges faced by individual ESP teacher
in teaching at a vocational higher institution. The research problem being addressed is what
challenges does an ESP teacher face in his ESP teaching. The study is carried out within the
framework of an interpretative paradigm and the findings presented in this article involve
only one ESP teacher as a part on an ongoing research.
In his introduction, the author describes kinds of ELT in Indonesian universities into
two classification; ELT for general purposes (EGP) and ELT for specific purposes (ESP). Those
majoring in English is considered EGP while students majoring in others subject is ESP. He
urges the need to study the issue because not much information available on the teaching
challenges in ESP context of Indonesia.
The author provides a short review of literature to give the reader an orientation of
the subject in a rather broader context and provide the reader with some fact from previous
study on the challenges an ESP teacher encountered, notably low learning motivation.
Moreover, the author also cited result of previous study that suggest EGP students tend to
have higher motivation that those of ESP because they are exposed to a more fun learning
environment than ESP learners. This fact would lead the readers to question what kind of
learning environment involved in the discussion, is it the physical learning environment or
psychological learning environment as well as the role of ESP teachers in the creation of
environment mentioned.
The outcome identifies several themes related to the challenges of teaching ESP that
includes; students learning motivation, the mismatch between reality and expectation, lack
of quality resources and heavy workload. These interesting findings, could be used as an
input for curriculum developers and educational managers to be considered in curriculum
development and policy making at the institution.
Moreover, the solution offered on dealing with each challenge facing ESP teachers
are very practical to implement. For instance, for the lack of motivation, the ESP teacher
need to identify the actual factor, reflect on his teaching and work to improve the teaching
if he finds any shortcomings. For the mismatch, the alternative solution rely heavily in the
institution managers with the input from ESP teacher could workout policy that may meet
curriculum requirement as well as maintain high participation rate of students. For the issue
of quality resources, ESP teachers are encouraged to utilize the internet as well as procuring
quality books and journals, laboratory, etc., also support from institutional leaders. As for
the workloads, previous study suggest that this has been a long-time debate almost
everywhere so the best solution relays on the institution leaders to assign ESP teacher
reasonably.
Overall, this article is very straight forward and empowering. Once the reader gets to
the finding and discussions, they could always connect to themselves with the situation
discussed and their daily professional life as an ESP teacher. It’s a well-written article with
important insights, relevant and very convincing in theory, the solution offered are practical
but also challenging for future implementation.