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1. What is the origin of ESP ?The answer by Lala Ramadhani and Wiwik Yusiani
English for specic purpose. The originin of ESP is...
As with most developments in human activity, ESP was not a
planned and coherent movement, but rather a phenomenon that
grew out of a number of converging trends. There are three main
reasons common to the emergence of all ESP:
1. The demands of a ra!e "ew World
The general eect of all this development was to e!ert pressure
on the language teaching profession to deliver the re"uired
goods. #hereas English had previously decided its own destiny,
it now become sub$ect to the wishes, needs and demands of
people other than language teacher.
English had become accountable to the scrutiny of the wider
world and the traditional leisurely and purposes free stroll
through the landscape of the English language seemed no
longer appropriate in the harsher realities of the mar%et place.
#. $ Re!olution in Linguisti%s
Traditionally the aims of linguistics had been to describe therules of English usage, that is the grammar. &n English language
teaching this gave rise to the view that there are important
dierences between, say, the English of commerce and that of
engineer.
'ost of the wor% at this time was in the area of English for
Science and technology (EST) and for time ESP and EST were
regarded as almost synonymous. The gained ground that
English needed by a particular group of learners could be
identied by analy*ing the linguistic characteristics of theirspecialist area of wor% or study.
&. 'o%us of the Learner
+ew developments in educational psychology also contributed
to the rise of ESP, by emphasi*ing the central importance of the
learners and their attitude to learning (e.g. odgers, -/).
0earners were seen to have dierent needs and interest, which
would have an important in1uence or their motivation to learn
and therefore on the activeness of their learning. This lent
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support to the development of courses in the which relevance
to the learners need and interests was paramount.-
#. Please e()lain the de!elo)ment of ESP?
The answer by *iana Tria +andra *ewi and $ni ,alasari
The development of ESP it is now in a fourth phase with a fth phase
of development starting to emerge from it is previous three main
phases of development started in the early beginnings of -/2s.
1. The %on%e)t of s)e%ial languange - register analysis
This stage operates on the basic principle that the English, of, say,
Electrical Enginering constituted a spesic register dierent fromother registers such 3iology or of 4eneral English. The aim of the
analysis was to identify the grammatical and le!ical features of the
registers.
The main motive behind register analyses such as Ewer and
latorre5s was the pedagogic one of ma%ing the ESP course more
relevant to learners needs. The aim was to produce a syllabus which
gave high priority to the languange forms students would meet in
their Science studies and in turn would give low priority to formsthey would not meet.
#. eyond the senten%e - rhetori%al or dis%ourse analysis
6n the second phase of development, ESP became closely involved
with the emerging eld of discourse or rhetorical analysis. This
phase gives more understanding how sentences were combined in
discourse to produce meaning.
The basic hypothesis of this stage, e!pressed by Allen and#iddowson (-78): 9The diculties which the students encounter
arise not so much from a defective %nowledge of the system of
English, but from an unfamiliarity with English use, and that
conse"uently their needs cannot be met by a course which simply
provides further practice in the composition of sentences, but only
by one which develops a %nowlede of how sentences are used in the
performance of dierent communicative acts.9
- Tom hutchinson and alan waters.English for specic purposes a learning ; centred
approach.new yor%:cambridge univercity press cambridge.-
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egister analysis had focussed on sentence grammar, but in
rhetorical or discourse analysis, the attention and focus is to
understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to
produce meaning. The concern of research, therefore was to identify the organisational
patterns in te!ts and to specify the linguistic means by which these
patterns are signalled. These patterns would then form the syllabus
of the ESP course.
The typical teaching materials based on the discourse approach
taught students to recognise te!tual patterns and discourse
mar%ers.
&. Target situation analysis
6n the third phase development of ESP, it aimed was to ta%e the
e!isting %nowledge and set it on a more scientic basis, by
establishing procedures for relating languange analysis more closely
to learner9s reasons for learning.
The ESP course design process should proceed by rst identifying
the target situation and then carrying out a rigorous analysis of the
linguistic features of that situation. The identied features will form
the syllabus of the ESP course.
This stage process is usually %nown as 9needs analysis9, but
according to =hambers9 (-centred approach is that
underlying all languange use there are common reasoning and
interpreting processes, which, regardless of the surface forms,
enable the students to e!tract meaning from discourse.
The focus should be on underlying interpretive strategies, which
enable the learner to cope with the surface forms, for e!ample
guessing the meaning of words from conte!t, using visual layout to
determine the type of te!t, e!ploiting cognates (words which are
similar in the mother tongue and the target languange).
A focus on spesic sub$ect registers is unnecessary in this approach,because the underlying processes ae not specic to any sub$ect
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register.
As has been noted, in terms of materials this approach generally
puts the emphasis on reading or listening strategies. The
characteristic e!ercises get the learners to re1ect on analyse how
meaning is produced in and retrieved from written or spo%endiscourse.
/. $ learning0%entred a))roa%h
All of the stages outlined so far have been fundamentally 1awed, in
that they are all based on descriptions of languange use. #hether
this description is of surface forms, as in the case of register
analysis, or of underlying processes, as in the s%ills and strategies
approach, the concern in each case is with describing what peopledo with languange. A trully vaid approach to ESP must be based on
an understanding of the processes of languange learning.
The Conclusion
All of the stages described so far are the stages of the development
of ESP from it is started in the early beginnings on the -/2s until
todays uses. These stages started by identifying and analysing
learners9 register and focused on sentence level, and on secondstages. ESP became closely involved with the emerging eld of
discourse or rhetorical analysis.
6n third stages, what to aimed to do was to ta%e the e!isting
%nowledge and set it on a more scientic basis, by establishing
procedures for relating laguange analysis more closely to learners9
reasons for learning. 6n the fourth stages the focus is in underlying
strategies.
&. Please e!plain the reason, why do ESP is an approach not product ? The answer by +anang Susanto 3ecause ESP is not a particular %ind of language or methodology,
nor does it consist of a particular type of teaching material.
@nderstood properly, it is an approach to language learning, which
is based on learner need.
. Please give a simple analogy of ESP as an approach B
Tom Cutchinson and Alan #aters, English for Specic Purposes: A learning-centered approach, (0ondon: =ambridge @niversity Press, -
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The answer by @mmu Cabibah ahmah
The topmost branches $ust below this level at which individual ESP
course occur. The branches $ust below this level indicate that these may
conveniently be divided into two main types of ESP dierentieated
according to whether the learner re"uieres English for academic study(EAP: English for Academic Purposes) or for wor%Dtraining
(E6PDEPDES0 :English for 6ccupational PurposeDEnglish for ocational
PurposeDocational English as a Second 0anguage). this is, not a clear>cut
distinction : people can wor% and study simultaneously : it is also lie%ely
that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study
environment will be used later when the student ta%es up, or returns to, a
$ob.
At the ne!t level down it is possible to distinguish ESP course by the
general nature of the learners5 specialism. Three large categories are
usually identied here : EST (English for Science and Technology), E3E
(English for business and Economics) and ESS (English for the social
Science). This last is not common, probably because it is not thought to
dier signicantly from more traditional humanities>based 4eneral
English.
As we go down the tree, we an see that ESP is $ust one branches
EF0DES0, which are themselves the main branches of English 0anguage
Teaching in general. E0T, in turn is ine variety of the many possible %indsof language teaching.
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3ut, there is more to a tree than is visible above ground : a tree cannot
survive without roots. The roots which nourish the tree of E0T are
communication and learning.G
G Tom Cutchinson and Alan #aters, English for Specic Purposes: A learning-centered approach, (0ondon: =ambridge @niversity Press, --7