SOME CHALLENGES FOR TEACHERS OF ESP

Selcuk Koran
Ishik University,
selcuk.koran@ishik.edu.iq

Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate the most common challenges
that the teachers of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) face while developing
an ESP course or during the teaching process . To achieve the goal of this paper,
some of the main ESP theories directly related to this study are introduced and
analyzed. It was found out that the most common challenges an ESP teacher
encounters are; selecting the teaching materials, designing a course, lack of
collaboration with the subject teachers and learners’ low general English level
which have been discussed in detail in this paper. In addition, this study tries to
provide possible solutions to these challenges obtained from the data collected
from the survey, from the literature review and theory. Moreover, this study
tries to emphasize the importance of the in depth needs analysis, which can be
carried out before the ESP courses. The main source of this study was the survey
which was carried out among the teachers of ESP at Ishik University (IU) and
Fezalar Educational Institution (FEI) in Iraq.

Key words; ESP, challenges, course design, carrier content, real content, needs
analysis, special field knowledge, heterogeneous classes.

Introduction

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is an approach to language teaching and

learning which is based on learner needs (Hutchinson and Waters, 1996).
Thus, ESP courses require special language programs which focus on
students’ special needs enabling them to use English for communication in
their own professional fields. In another words, ESP is based on the students’
specific needs. However, designing a course, finding proper materials, getting
familiar with the subject knowledge or conducting the needs analysis might be
challenging for many new ESP teachers.

Very few studies have investigated the challenges that ESP teachers encounter
when they develop or give a course. Without a doubt, ESP involves a totally
different language that even the native speakers of English have some
difficulties with teaching it, because teaching English for IT or Business
requires special knowledge. Even it happens when ESP teachers find it
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difficult to decide whether they teach English for instance, for Business or IT
or they teach those subjects in English.

This paper has been inspired by my own teaching experience at Ishik

University (IU) and it will be beneficial for those who are at the threshold of
their ESP career and for those who are given a task to design an ESP course.
This study strives to investigate the challenges such as; selecting the teaching
materials, designing a course, learners’ needs and expectations, lack of
collaboration with the subject teacher and classroom conditions etc. all of
which do not tolerate negligence in any of the steps of the process and it
recommends possible solutions. In this study, it is also aimed to emphasize the
importance of the in-depth needs analysis which I believe is essential before
designing the course or the materials of ESP.

What is ESP?

Tell me what you need English for I will tell you the English you need
(Hutchinson and Waters 1996). I mostly relied on Hutchinson and Waters
(1987) who defined ESP as an approach to English teaching and learning.
Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St John (1998) assume that the main
concerns of ESP are to prepare learners to communicate effectively in tasks
prescribed by their study or work situation. It is quite obvious that the main
question in ESP is why the learner needs to learn a foreign language. Robinson
(1991) suggests that an ESP course should be based on a Needs Analysis (NA)
to specify what exactly it is that the students have to do through the medium of
English. What is the needs analysis in ESP? NA can be defined as a procedure
to get information about the desires, expectations, demands and lacks of the
learners in order to design the course accordingly. The needs analysis
approach is considered to be the primary key issue in ESP. Consequently, ESP
courses are developed from a NA which focuses on what exactly a learner
needs to learn in English.

The emergence of ESP took place during the Second World War and it is still
developing. Hutchinson and Waters 1996 have stated that there are three main
reasons common to the emergence of ESP; the demands of a brave new world,
a revolution in linguistics and focus on learners. All three reasons seem to
point towards the need for increased specialization in language learning. Since
English is lingua franca for many people in the world, it is now being used in
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every sphere of communication in international trade, business relationship,
science and technology.

The authors, on whom I mostly rely in this study are Hutchinson and Waters
(1996), Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St John (1998) and Robinson (1991),
and they make a great deal of contribution to the chapters such as; needs
analysis, course design, selection of materials and methodology in their books.
It justifies how essential it is to take those issues into account when designing
an ESP course which will be discussed in this paper.

Research aims and methodology

The aim of this study is to investigate the most common challenges that the
teachers of ESP face while developing an ESP course, during the teaching
process and to provide them with possible solutions to these challenges
obtained from the data collected from the survey, from the literature review
and theory. The survey was conducted to 15 participants all of whom were
ESP teachers in IU and in Fezalar Educational Institutions (FEI), a sister
organization of IU. Most of the participants had been teaching ESP for at least
three years. The questionnaire contained 15 questions of various types such as
multiple choice, rating questions, yes/no questions and open ended questions.
The idea was to get as much data as possible on the challenges that ESP
teachers come across before and during the teaching process.

Respondents Results and Data Analysis

The respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire on their attitudes

towards ESP teaching. The questionnaire included multiple choice, rating
questions, yes/no questions and opens ended questions. Some of them which
are directly related to my study are analyzed in the following tables.

Which of the following problems do you face when teaching ESP? Please rank
them in order of importance. (from 1 least important- to 5 most important)

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Table1. The main challenges faced by ESP teachers (%)

Questions 1 2 3 4 5

1. Lack of learners’ 3% 17 % 80 %
needs analysis

5% 19 % 86 %

2. Lack of suitable

materials

16% 63% 21%

3. Lack of specialist
knowledge

4. Lack of 9% 50 % 41%
collaboration with the
subject lecturer

5. Learners’ low 9% 33% 27 % 21% 10 %

General English level

In which of the following area would you like to receive training? Give in
ranking order.

Table2. Desired training programs by ESP teachers

Questions 1 2 3 4 5

Course 9% 9% 82%
Design in
ESP

Specialized 5% 6% 89%
terminology

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Methodology 14% 70% 11% 5%

ESP theory 3% 10% 62% 20%

5%

One of the most important problems a teacher may come across when teaching
ESP is the lack of knowledge about the reasons why learners need Englishor
insufficient needs analysis. In the process of teaching English as a foreign
language, the English language teacher is required to consider as objectively
as possible why the learners need English (Kennedy and Bolitho, 1984:2).

Hutchinson and Waters distinguish ESP from General English by an

awareness of the need. When the learners are aware of what to learn, this
awareness will decide what is acceptable and reasonable in the language
course. In developing an ESP course, needs analysis (NA) is considered to be
the corner stone (Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St John, 1998) only after
which an ESP practitioner tailors the course. The most widely known work on
needs analysis is John Munby’s Communicative Syllabus Design (1987)
which consists of a range of questions about key communicative variables
(topic, participants, medium etc) to identify the target language needs of any
group of learners. Several methods can be used for NA for instance;
interviews, questionnaires and observations etc. The source for needs analysis
can be the learners, teachers, company managers, published or unpublished
literature and experts etc. In NA, a practitioner not only asks questions about
the students’ expectations of the course, but also he might observe the
environment in which the learners will use English.

Hutchinson and Water (1987) have stated that English for Specific Purposes
involves different variants such an EST (English for Science and Technology),
EOP (English for Occupational Purposes) and EAP (English for Academic
Purposes). Therefore; it is important to conduct NA to find out for what
purpose English is desired by the learners. If the language learners are
university students they will have to develop their listening comprehension

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skills in order to understand the lectures and seminars, they will have to
develop their writing skills to write course projects or dissertation and they
will also have to develop their speaking in order to give oral presentations etc.
In that case students need English for Academic Purposes. If the language
learners need English for their present or future job, which is English for
Occupational Purposes, the teacher should know what kind of job it is and
what kind of field knowledge it might require and then he/she designs the
course accordingly. The table1 demonstrates that at IU and FEI about 80 % of
ESP teachers see lack of needs analysis being the most important problem
which is considered to be the corner stone of ESP. Only 5% of teachers rated
NA third which justifies how crucial role NA plays in ESP.

It can be seen in the table1 that most teachers of IU and FEI consider the lack
of suitable materials in ESP as being the one of the most important issues
while designing an ESP course. Among the respondents 86 % of them ranked
it the fifth, 19% of them ranked it the fourth and only 5% of them ranked it the
third. As materials are used in all courses of English but what to use how to
use in ESP is a challenging key question for many practitioners. In some
countries where English is a foreign language only course materials provide
the source of English for learners. In those countries additional texts should be
given to the learners to expose them to the language as much as possible.

Materials in ESP should be chosen carefully to reflect the real language. In

some cases, when the teacher does not find ready-made materials completely
matching the learners’ needs then he should create his/her own materials.
However, ESP teacher is actually not a writer of materials but rather a
provider of materials (Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St John, 1998) who
selects from what is available, provides authentic real-life materials, modifies,
tailors and makes them appropriate to fit the learners’ needs. For example, if
an ESP teacher has not found a textbook suitable to his/her learners among the
ones already available, in that case s/he tries to modify the existing materials
to tailor his/her course in order to make them relevant to the needs of the
learners.

As it is known that only the small number of teachers are good designers of
course materials, to produce materials from scratches will be a challenging
task in most cases for most ESP teachers. Writing materials for ESP and
finding suitable carrier content to match the real content, and further
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implementation within a course will require hours to prepare an hour-lesson
which is very time-consuming and impractical. Taking into consideration how
difficult it is to write materials, it is suggested to select them from the
available ones and tailor them to fit your own course.

Another challenge that an ESP teacher encounters is the inadequate subject

knowledge which can be seen in the table1. Among the respondents 21%
ranked it the fifth, 63% ranked it the fourth and 16% ranked it the third which
shows that most teachers of IU and FEI struggle with the subject knowledge in
ESP courses. In any teaching activity, whether its aim is to teach language or
skills is presented in context (Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St John,
1998). Since special terminology is usually involved in the context of ESP,
getting familiar with the carrier content of the subject is crucial in order to
present the real content.

Moreover, ESP teachers very often use the context as a vehicle to present the
desired language skills. For example, the teacher may use the context of the
photosynthesis to present certain linguistic features for the students who study
at the biology department. In that case, it is not the aim of the text to teach
students about the photosynthesis rather it aims to use photosynthesis as a
carrier content to teach specific language skills which is the real content.

Since ESP teachers are not specialists in students’ professional fields, it is

quite obvious that sometimes they struggle with the language of the subject
matter. Consequently, they face texts whose content is not familiar to them
which make it necessary for ESP teachers to become aware of the content
knowledge as well. The ESP teacher should be familiar with both the real and
the carrier content of the subject and he/she should at least have some
superficial knowledge of both contents. For instance, an ESP teacher, who
teaches English the students of civil engineering faculty, should at least have
some superficial knowledge of the field. This content knowledge will certainly
provide the ESP teachers with an opportunity to use it for having real
communication and activities in the classroom because the learners are already
aware of the carrier content. This can be achieved by reading some literature,
subscribing to a relevant journal, following the latest studies, observing the
subject lessons, consulting the subject teacher etc.

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It has been proved by many ESP researchers that collaboration between the
language teacher and the specialist or subject teacher is one of the most
important parts of ESP course design. However there might be a problem
stemming from the lack of collaboration between them which is demonstrated
in the table1. At IU and FEI, about 41% of teachers ranked the lack of
collaboration the fifth, 50 % ranked it the fourth and only 9% of teachers
ranked it the third. It shows that most teachers think that lack of collaboration
exists between the ESP teacher and subject teacher. The survey of this study
also reveals that this problem may be caused by time constraints, by
differences in personalities and rank related issues. These issues might be
resolved by the support from the administration. For example team- teaching
approach or special meetings, where the subject teacher and the language
teacher work together, can be arranged by the administration. Since ESP
teachers have limited specialist subject knowledge which is already mentioned
earlier, it is highly important to them to cooperate with the subject teachers
during the process of syllabus designing, preparing home assignment,
activities or oral tasks. Consequently subject teachers might offer great help
about the language usage, basic jargon and text types.

Moreover, in some courses where students begin to study ESP from the
freshmen year the teacher has to be concerned with the professional
competence of the learners besides their competence in the language. Some of
the learners can be good at English others can be good at content knowledge
which might cause a difficulty to develop an ESP course. In such cases the
teacher might want to approach every learner with a special set of tasks
tailored to meet their individual needs. E.g. Students lacking content
knowledge can be encouraged to read as much literature related to their field
as possible. At IU and FEI, teachers don’t see General English (GE) level as
an important issue, since the students with enough level of GE are admitted to
study at the faculties. When the students are admitted to Ishik University they
take English proficiency test, then the ones who get less than 65 out of 100
points study English for one year at IU Preparatory School. However, GE
level is an important issue in ESP, since the ESP learners are usually required
to be at least at pre-intermediate level to be able to take ESP courses.

Teaching ESP in heterogeneous classes i.e. when the learners are from
different disciplines, professions or levels of management, might also create

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difficulties to teachers to find materials, textbooks and activities which are
common to everyone in the group and to produce specific work. In most cases,
even modifying existing materials to suit learners’ needs is difficult enough
when the learners are from different disciplines. Even a group from one
company can be heterogeneous if they are from different levels of
management such as secretaries, managers etc. In homogeneous classes it will
be easier to generate materials and texts for the learners as most of them will
relate to their own field. At IU, ESP is taught in homogeneous classes,
however, this issue is a general one and it is worth to mention here as this is
also a challenge for many ESP practitioners.

It was also revealed in the interview that most of the ESP teachers of IU and
FEI complained about the administrations. They claim that their
administrations are not helpful and supportive whenever ESP teachers want to
change the course materials or implement something new into the syllabus.
The administrations’ unwillingness to support teachers is due to the fact that
they don’t want to spare extra financial funds for the materials or to change the
timetable already fixed. In order not to have any disagreements with the
administrations, each step should be discussed with and approved by them
beforehand. . Consequently, ESP teachers can take this evidence into
consideration when they design ESP courses.

It can be seen in the table2 that most teachers of ESP are in favor of receiving
training in Course Design. Since training is not provided for teachers in most
institutions and at IU, how to design an ESP course is one of the key questions
which has no easy and straight forward answer. However there are some
strategies which can be followed before starting an ESP course.For example; if
you are given a task to design an ESP course for students of Ishik University
IT department several procedures should be followed; Needs Analysis, which
is already mentioned above or Target Situation Analysis can be conducted
using questionnaires and interviews with students and subject lecturers.
Observation, lesson records, test results can also be used for this purpose as
well. In order to save time and energy it’s a good idea to study some
researches by other course designers and adapt their approaches to fit your
own situation.

The table 2 also shows that most of the teachers expressed their willingness to
receive training on terminology, the theory and the methodology of ESP. At
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 IU or similar institutions where training is not provided in that case the ESP
practitioner should get self-training by reading the theory and other researches
on ESP. Being familiar with the ESP theory and the methodology will
certainly provide teachers many strategies to follow when they design or teach
ESP courses. For example; when I was working on the literature review of this
study I read plenty of books and published articles on the ESP theory, history
and methodology which I definitely believe, helped me a lot to understand
what actually ESP is. Any teacher, who is given a task to design an ESP
course, must certainly consult these sources which I believe is very essential
for ESP teachers.

Conclusion
Since an ESP course is very demanding one, teachers of ESP may face a lot of
challenges not only generated by the lack of specific field knowledge,
insufficient needs analysis in developing a course or finding suitable materials
for the course but also by unsupportive administrations as well. In order to
minimize the effects of those challenges in ESP, the practitioner should start
from in-depth needs analysis and design the course materials according to the
needs and expectations of the learners.

Even though an ESP teacher may not be an expert, he/she can overcome most
of the challenges by reading some literature about the professional field of the
learners that will develop their competence and also by collaborating with the
subject teacher which will in turn make the teachers more familiar with the
content knowledge.

It is also recommended that during the process of designing an ESP course,

each step should be discussed with and approved by the administration
beforehand. Otherwise any changes during the course might not be welcomed
by the administration, as they might require changes in the number of the
lessons or materials which already have been decided before the course.

However, the teacher should be the classroom organizer and he should

understand the carrier content of the teaching materials as well. ESP teachers
need to be flexible so they should respond quickly to the issues which might
come up in the lesson. Moreover, they need to take learners’ suggestions about
the lessons into consideration and they should encourage the students to create
their own materials as well.
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In addition to all of the issues mentioned above, an ESP practitioner should
closely follow the latest researches in the field i.e. read related publications,
attend conferences and visit relevant institutions in search of expert
observations and opinions.

References

Dudley-Evans, Tony and St John Maggie Jo (1998): Developments in English

for Specifi Purposes. A multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge: CUP.
Hutchinson, T. and Waters, A. (1987): English for Specific Purposes. A
learning-centre approach. Cambridge: CUP.
Robinson, P. (1991). ESP Today: A Practitioner's Guide. New York:
Prentice Hall.
Kennedy, Ch. And Bolitho, R. (1991): English for Specific Purposes. London:
Macmillan Press Ltd.
Munby, J. (1987). Communicative Syllabus Design. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Widdowson, H.G. (1998): "Communication and community: The pragmatics
of ESP". ESP. 17.1:3-14.

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