Approaches to Course

Design
 OVERVIEW

ESP
Course design
Approaches to course design in ESP

2
 ESP

ESP (English for Specific Purposes) involves

teaching and learning of specific skills and language
needed by particular learners for a particular purpose.
ESP makes use of the methodology and activities of
the disciplines it serves.
ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis,
register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to
these activities.
 COURSE DESIGN

Course design is the process by which the raw data

about a learning need is interpreted in order to
produce an integrated series of teaching-learning
experiences, whose ultimate aim is to lead the
learners to a particular state of knowledge

4
 APPROACHES TO COURSE DESIGN

i. Language-Centered Approach
ii. Skills-Centered Approach
iii. Learning-Centered Approach
 LANGUAGE-CENTERED APPROACH

It is the simplest and more familiar kind to English

teachers.
It is particularly common in ESP.
It aims to draw as direct a connection as possible
between the analysis of the target situation and the
content of the ESP course.
A language-centered approach says: this the nature of
the target situation performance determines ESP
course.
 Cont....
It has a number of weaknesses:
i. it might be considered a learner-centered approach
because it starts from the learners and their needs but in
reality its not learner-centered. The learner is simply
used as a means of identifying the target situation.
ii. The language-centered process can also be criticized for
being a static and inflexible procedure.
iii. The language-centered analysis of target situation data is
only at the surface level. It reveals very little about the
competence that underlined the performance
 SKILLS-CENTERED APPROACH

This approach aimed to help learners for developing

skills and strategies which continue after the ESP
course by making learners better processors of
information.
A skills-centered approach says: we must look behind
target performance data to discover what processes
enable someone to perform. Those processes will
determine the ESP course
 Cont
The skills-centered approach based on two fundamental
principles:
The basic theoretical hypothesis is that underlying
any language behavior are certain skills and
strategies, which the learner uses in order to
procedure.
The pragmatic basis for the skills-centered approach
derives from a distinction made by Widdowson
(1981) between goal-oriented courses and process
oriented courses.
 Cont
Needs analysis plays two roles in a skill-centered
approach:
It provides a basis for discovering the essential
competence that enables people to perform in the
target situation.
It enables the course designer to discover the
potential knowledge and abilities that the learners
bring to the ESP course.
 3: Learning-Centered Approach

This approach is based on the principle that learning

is totally determined by the learner. As teachers we can
influence what we teach, but what learners learn is
determined by the learners alone.
In this approach learning is seen as a process in
which the learners use what knowledge or skills they
have in order to make sense of the flow of new
information. Learning is not just a mental process, it is a
process of negotiation between individuals and society.
 Summary

Language-centered approach concentrates on

performance.
Skills-centered approach concentrates on
competence.
Learning-centered approach concentrates on
how to get competence.
 Cont

A learning-centered approach says: We must

look beyond the competence that enables
someone to perform, because what we really
want to discover is not the competence itself,
but how someone acquires that competence