Nadežda Stojković Faculty of electronic Engineering, University of

Niš, Serbia Slavica Čepon Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana,

Slovenia Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević Faculty of Philosophy, University of

Montenegro, Montenegro

REVERSING THE PERSPECTIVE – HOW CAN ENGLISH FOR

SPECIFIC PURPOSES INFORM ELT

and a note on the position of ESP lecturers

Tailoring of the ESP course as an approach to be reconsidered in ELT

The position of ESP lecturers within institution they are affiliated with

TWO FOCAL POINTS OF THIS TWO FOCAL POINTS OF THIS PAPERPAPER

ESP combines subject matter and English language teaching

needs analysis determines which language skills are most needed by the students, syllabus designed accordingly

special emphasis on these needs analysis We do acknowledge, that although, in the

primary ESP Absolute Characteristic – ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learners, needs analysis is certainly highly present in GE

The most distinguishable characteristic of ESP

Fast developing and demanding global industrial society demands PERFORMATIVITY (Lyotard, 1987)

Shift from traditional, descriptive linguistics to the research of language in contextual use

The result of these two – change in the approach and methodology of ELT towards more precise analysis of learner’s attitudes and learning habits

Relevance and extent to which ESP is present today

Without the support of relevant analytics, yet, we pose a question – in today’s market driven global economy, what are the needs regarding ELT of adult learners?

Our answer is – certainly not general English, they need English for their profession, therefore they need ESP

Our thesis regarding the current status of ESP

ESP material is designed for the specified learner/learners, and only parts of it can be used by a teacher/learner of a different course. Practitioners of ESP worldwide constantly make new material to suit the needs, age, interests, temperament of their students.

Publishing houses, big and small, offer ESP course books/material a highly generalized nature, used most often in secondary schools settings. They do not venture to do anything beyond that level.

The reason – something to do with revenue?

Our statistically unsupported rationale for this situation

Whereas in designing a course ESP takes into consideration the realities of the real people involved in the learning process, GE presupposes their needs and characteristics and offers ready-made, mass produced material.

This fits the concept of ‘performativity’ - the means, techniques or skills that contribute to the efficient operation of the world market and to maintaining its internal cohesion and legitimation

Also connected to the knowledge economy and commodity theory of knowledge

ESP informing (back) ELT

summary of our presented arguments and the starting point of our core argument of this paper are seemingly paradoxical

right in the heart of possibly negative side of ESP – mere performativity – the liberating option

! necessary hedging – we speak only regarding language teaching not the social phenomenon

Taking a twist on the performativity concept

GE material mass produced – certainly based on admirable, minute needs analyses of interests, preferences, age characteristics, demographic characteristics, etc., and all those analyses done by ultimate professionals in their fields, be those not only the methodology of language teaching, but certainly psychology of teaching and learning, pedagogy, sociology, etc.

- Yet, GE is mass produced. - It is here that GE can learn (back) from

ESP

ESP practitioners take into account every single detail about their students

No pre-set textbook, or content in whatever format it may be, can truly meet the situation in the classroom

ESP lecturers design the material on the go, in response to the feedback gained from their students. Everything counts there, once the lecturer meets the real students, material is modified, changed, discarded, reinvented, in order to make them motivated and to attune the material so to exactly fit their needs.

We, as authors of this paper, find this highly humane, but not enough emphasized and acclaimed

This is the approach, we claim, that needs to be rethought in GE.

It is ESP, so away from teaching language as an ontological skill, that can now influence back the teaching of GE as that very humanistic endeavor, precisely by not imposing the students with the pre-set material, by allowing the students’ own characters and needs to shape the linguistic material

often stereotypically presented as ‘a solitary endeavor in an uncharted land’

our claim opposes this view of a position of ‘hardships’

the practice of ESP teaching as presented above, and in the environment where the practitioner is most often left to their own devices, can be a heaven in which one has all the freedom of full, uninhibited expression of professional skills, of the creativity, innovation

A note on the position of ESP lecturers