Material design for ESP

According to Johns and Price-Machado (2001) English for Specific Purposes

(ESP) is a movement based on the conception that all language teaching
should be tailored and sensitive to the needs of the specific groups and
sociocultural contexts in which students will use the language. Students needs
re related to academic, occupational and professional settings and English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)
represent the two main branches of ESP.

ESP courses must be designed to meet the specific needs of the learners that
are related to content, particular disciplines, occupations and activities centred
on the kind of language that is appropriate to the tasks.

From: http://www.esp-world.info/Articles_31/Authenticity_Effectiveness.pdf. Acess: 20-04-2015.

Before considering ESP material design, it is important to discuss students

needs, available teachers, the role of authenticity, and EAP course and syllabus
design because the materials are highly associated to these issues.

The first and most important aspect to the considered in the development of an
ESP course is the students needs. The question: who are the learners? must
be answered. Another important issue is related to the available teachers and
what contents and skills they are supposed to teach. ESP teachers face

challenges related to the specific contents, particular vocabulary and practical

tasks related to the different fields of knowledge.
Authenticity is another aspect that must be taken into consideration and if the
courses are not offered on-site, they need to provide rich opportunities to use
the language in real contexts and situations. Problem-solving or task-based
activities in the classroom can engage students in authentic tasks that require
reflection to be solved and interactional situations.
Materials are tools that can be rearranged to suite students needs, abilities and
interests during the course. Using authentic materials in the language
classroom means that the focus will be on comprehension, opportunities to
introduce cultural issues and real language, what will increase motivation and
language awareness.
The two main principles to design materials for ESP courses must be
summarizes like this:
1- The content must be related to learners professional needs;
2- Authenticity is required and the tasks must be close to learners
professional practices.
Hyland (2006) provides a list of criteria that must be considered when choosing
or designing materials to ESP courses and they have implications inside and
outside the classroom:
a- Content: it must be appropriate to learners age, interests, needs and
goals;
b- Tasks: must communicative and integrated to the real practices;
c- Teacher-learner interaction: reciprocal;
d- Learning environment: it must encourage risk taking;
e- Social values and attitudes: relationship between the learning context
and the social context;
f- Cultural issues: must be contemplated and the differences between
cultures must be considered in the materials.
Motivation is another key element in the learning process and materials used in
ESP courses must be related to learners experiences and future jobs and it will
increase their motivation and interest in the course.
Hyland (2006) believes that two main kinds of materials can be identified in ESP
courses: general and subject-specific materials. General materials focus on
general ability to communicate and subject-specific materials focus on specific
areas like academic or professional English. Both kinds of materials can help
students to develop skills and knowledge but subject-specific materials can
better fit the learners specific needs.

The choice of materials can impact the classroom in three main ways: the kind
of language students will be exposed, the methods and techniques used; and in
the increase of motivation and relevance of the course.
According to the general or subject-specific natures of the materials, they can
also be subdivided in three main types: available textbooks, tailor-made
materials and electronic materials.
If students are interest in general communication, available or commercial
textbooks can be a good choice but even available textbooks need to be
adapted to fit students needs. There are some ways to adapt pre-existing
materials to students needs:
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Adding: supplementing with extra materials;

Deleting: omitting irrelevant items;
Modifying: rewriting to improve or change the level of the activities;
Simplifying: reducing the level of difficulty or clarifying;
Reordering: changing the sequence of the items.

The commercial or available materials can also be divided in two categories:

model materials and reference materials. The first category is composed by
samples used to illustrate particular features of a text and they can increase
students knowledge about text organization and style. The second category
focuses on knowledge not on practice and they can be more general than the
model materials. The reference materials include dictionaries, grammar books,
encyclopaedias, etc.
According to the specific nature of ESP, teachers should create their own
materials but this decision depends on institutional views and even on teachers
availability and knowledge. In tailor-made materials, teachers should design
tasks that simulate real-life professional situations as closely as possible. When
designing materials, teachers must take into consideration the length of the
course, the target audience, the correct structure and sequence, the vocabulary
and the linguistic level of the learners.
Electronic materials can offer a wide range of media resources like listening
materials and video files that will favour the different learning styles. E-materials
can also present flexibility and be daily updated, being adjustable to different
groups and specific needs. They represent more work from home and bring
exercises that suit different types of learners. On the other hand, they require
active participation of the learners and combine theory and practice and it
means that students need to have more discipline and autonomy to use them.
Effectiveness of the course and materials used must be measured and it can be
done implicitly or explicitly. Implicit evaluation happens during the course
through observation, grades, participation, motivation, etc. Explicit evaluation
can be done through questionnaires, surveys, interviews, etc. The evaluation

and adaptation of available materials can represent the first step to the
development of tailor-made materials. On the other hand, tailor made materials
must also be evaluated in order to be adjusted to students needs and situations
that occur during the process. Course development and material design and
adaptation are seen as an on-going process.

References
BELCHER, D.D. Trends in teaching English for specific purposes. Annual
review of applied linguistics. Pg. 165-186. 2004.
BROWN, H.D. Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language
pedagogy. Ed. Longman. New York. 2001.
HYLAND, K. English for Academic Purposes. Ed. Routledge. New York. 2006.
JOHNS, A; PRICE-MACHADO, D. English for Specific Purposes: tailoring
courses to students needs and to the outside world. In: Teaching English as a
second foreign language. Ed. Heinle&Heinle. Pg. 43-49. Boston. 2001.