Larbi Ben M’hidi University, Oum El Bouaghi Module : ESP
Faculty of Letters and Languages Level : M1 Did
Department of English Teacher : Dr.
Azeroual
Lecture 01: Course Design
[Link] Course Design
The simplest obvious distinction between ESP and GE lies in the roles
performed by ESP and GE teachers. In fact, ESP teachers are called ESP Practitioner
(Swales, 1988) as it covers a range of roles including: course designer and material
provider, ‘researcher, collaborator and evaluator. Given the fact that ESP courses are
built around learners’ needs, ESP practitioner have to design the suitable courses that
cope with the learners’ need identified through collaboration with subject specialist
teachers and. In so doing, ESP practitioner conducts different searches to select the
suitable material. Evaluator is basically the ignored role by many ESP practitioners.
Only few who evaluate both students and courses’ effectiveness.
In ESP, course design is an integrated series of teaching-learning experiences,
whose ultimate aim is to lead the learners to a particular state of knowledge
(Hutchinson and Waters, 1987). In other words, designing a course is fundamentally
a matter of planning and structuring a course through asking questions in order to
provide reasoned basis subsequent processes of syllabus design, materials writing,
classroom teaching and evaluation. ESP courses aim to enable learners to
communicate effectively in the target situation through equipping them with specific
skills and vocabulary needed in their own field of specialism.
[Link] to ESP Course Design
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) highlighted three main approaches to course
design: language-centred, skills-centred, and learning centred.
Language -centred Approach is prevalent in ESP. It draws direct connection
between target situation and the content of ESP course focusing on developing the
linguistic competence needed by learners to perform effectively in the in target
situation. In simpler words, the creation of the syllabus is based on identifying the
linguistic features of target situation through the identification of the learner’s
target situation and the selection of the theoretical view of language. Based on the
syllabus created, materials are designed and evaluation is established.
Although this approach seems logical and straightforward, it has a number of
weaknesses:
1. It is a learner restricted approach. The role of the learner is to locate the
restricted area of knowledge needed; i.e., the learner is simply used as a means of
identifying the target situation.
2. It is a static and inflexible procedure; it lacks feedback channels and error
tolerance built.
3. It is not systematic as it appears to be. The systematization in analyzing and
presenting knowledge doesn’t imply the systematization learning. This approach
ignores an important aspect in learning which is how the mind creates its internal
system of knowledge.
4. It ignores important factors in the creation of the course. Data is not
important in itself.
5. The language-centred analysis of target situation data is only at the surface
level. It reveals very little about the competence that underlies the performance.
The Skills–centred Approach aims to get away from the surface performance
and Focus on the skills and [Link] type of courses present its learning
objectives in terms of both performance and competence. In simpler terms, the
emphasis is not achieving a particular set of goals, but on enabling the learners to
achive what they can withing the given constraints. Although, his approach take the
learners into account than the earlier mentioned approach, still, it approaches the
learner as user of language rather than as a learner of language .
The learning –centred approach is grounded on one simple idea, learning a language
is a process detrmined by a learner. It focuses on the way of acquiring a comptence
that enbales one to perform effectively in the target situation;i.e, students are
responsible for their own learning using different strategies.
Unlike the previous approaches, the learner is present in every single step in the
process of deisning the course as it is illustaretd in the following figure.
Figure.1 Learning-centred Approach (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987, p.73)
3. Factors Affecting ESP Course Design
Before embarking in designing courses, teachers should draw a clear picture on
the several factors that contribute to the process of ESP course design. Hutchinson
and Waters (1987) highlighted three main factors that affect ESP course design:
Language descriptions, Learning theories, Needs analysis.
Figure 2. Factors Affecting ESP Course Design (Hutchison and Waters, 1987, p.22)
As illustrated in the above figure, ESP practitioners should have a clear vision of
the language description which refers to the language system broken down and
described for the purposes of learning; for example, notional, functional, structural.
These distinctive theoretical views of language facilitate the selection of the syllabus
for the ESP Practitioner, what to teach. The learning theory provides theoretical basis
for methodology as they explain how people learn not only language, but also any
kind of knowledge. The third factor is identifying the target situation and the learning
needs. Learners’ needs are placed at the heart of the ESP course. Needs analysis is a
set of procedures for specifying the parameters of a course of study.