English for Specific Purposes: Teaching to Perceived Needs and Imagined Futures in Worlds of Work, Study, and Everyday Life

This overview of the current state of English for specific purposes (ESP) begins by surveying ongoing debates on key topics: needs assessment and its goals, specificity in instructional methods, and the role of subject knowledge in instructor expertise. Two strands of current theory and research are next surveyed, namely, genre theory and corpus-enhanced genre studies, and critical pedagogy and ethnographies, followed by examples of research and theory-informed pedagogical strategies for literacy and spoken discourse. Topics in need of further inquiry are suggested.

[1]  John M. Swales,et al.  Episodes in ESP : a source and reference book on the development of English for science and technology , 1985 .

[2]  U. Connor,et al.  Discourse in the Professions: Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics , 2004 .

[3]  Jan Engberg,et al.  Languages for Specific Purposes , 2006 .

[4]  Maggie-Jo St. John,et al.  Developments in ESP : a multi-disciplinary approach , 1998 .

[5]  John M. Swales,et al.  Academic writing for graduate students : essential tasks and skills : a course for nonnative speakers of English , 1996 .

[6]  Ken Hyland,et al.  Specificity revisited: how far should we go now? , 2002 .

[7]  Lynne Flowerdew,et al.  The argument for using English specialised corpora to understand academic and professional language. , 2004 .

[8]  Thomas Orr,et al.  English for Specific Purposes , 2002 .

[9]  Susana M. Sotillo,et al.  Using Corpus Linguistics to Investigate Class, Ideology, and Discursive Practices in Online Political Discussions , 2004 .

[10]  J. Swales.  Research Genres: Explorations and Applications , 2004 .

[11]  John M. Swales,et al.  Commentary for Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills , 2004 .

[12]  Diane J. Tedick,et al.  Reading in the Composition Classroom: Second Language Perspectives , 1993 .

[13]  John Yen,et al.  Introduction , 2004, CACM.

[14]  Aviva Freedman,et al.  Show and Tell? The Role of Explicit Teaching in the Learning of New Genres , 1993, Research in the Teaching of English.

[15]  J. Hall,et al.  The Sociopolitics of English Language Teaching , 2000 .

[16]  R. Robertson,et al.  Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity , 1995 .

[17]  C. Nickerson.  English as a lingua franca in international business contexts , 2005 .

[18]  Rebeca Jasso-Aguilar.  Sources, Methods and Triangulation in Needs Analysis: A Critical Perspective in a Case Study of Waikiki Hotel Maids. , 1999 .

[19]  Sue Starfield.  Research Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes: ‘I'll go with the group’: Rethinking ‘discourse community’ in EAP , 2001 .

[20]  Kate Cadman,et al.  English for Academic Possibilities: the research proposal as a contested site in postgraduate genre pedagogy , 2002 .

[21]  John M. Swales,et al.  A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctoral students: Moving from available specialized corpora to self-compiled corpora , 2006 .

[22]  Susan Conrad,et al.  Speaking and Writing in the University: A Multidimensional Comparison , 2002 .

[23]  B. Seidlhofer.  Closing A Conceptual Gap: The Case For A Description Of English As A Lingua Franca , 2001 .

[24]  Rita C Simpson-Vlach,et al.  The MICASE Handbook: A Resource for Users of the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English , 2006 .

[25]  Nigel Harwood,et al.  What do we want EAP teaching materials for , 2005 .

[26]  V. Ramanathan,et al.  CRITICAL LITERACIES AND LANGUAGE EDUCATION: GLOBAL AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES , 2005, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.

[27]  D. Murray.  TECHNOLOGIES FOR SECOND LANGUAGE LITERACY , 2005, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.

[28]  Diane Belcher,et al.  8. TRENDS IN TEACHING ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES , 2004, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.

[29]  M. Bloor,et al.  Languages for Specific Purposes : Practice and Theory. , 1986 .

[30]  Michael Halliday,et al.  An Introduction to Functional Grammar , 1985 .

[31]  Ken Hyland,et al.  Genre and second language writing , 2003 .

[32]  Christine B. Feak,et al.  English in today's research world : a writing guide : a sequel to Academic writing for graduate students and an advanced text mainly designed for junior scholars and graduate students who are not native speakers of English , 2000 .

[33]  John Holmes,et al.  Intertextuality in EAP: an African context , 2004 .

[34]  David Nunan,et al.  The Learner-Centred Curriculum , 1988 .

[35]  Susan Bosher,et al.  From needs analysis to curriculum development: designing a course in health-care communication for immigrant students in the USA , 2002 .

[36]  Matthew Peacock,et al.  Research Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes: Issues in EAP: A preliminary perspective , 2001 .

[37]  Barbara Seidlhofer,et al.  10. RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA , 2004, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.

[38]  Stephen Reder,et al.  CONTEXT AND LITERACY PRACTICES , 2005, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.

[39]  Ragnar Andreas Audunson,et al.  Technology and Social Inclusion. Rethinking the Digital Divide , 2006, J. Documentation.

[40]  Suresh Canagarajah,et al.  Multilingual writers and the academic community: towards a critical relationship , 2002 .

[41]  Pornsiri Muangsamai.  EFL learning/writing development in the Internet environment: A case study from pre-medical students' perspectives , 2003 .

[42]  Lynne Flowerdew,et al.  An integration of corpus-based and genre-based approaches to text analysis in EAP/ESP: countering criticisms against corpus-based methodologies , 2005 .

[43]  K. Hyland,et al.  EAP: Issues and directions , 2002 .

[44]  R. Barnard.  An Intercultural Approach to English Language Teaching , 2005 .

[45]  Lynne Flowerdew.  Integrating traditional and critical approaches to syllabus design: the ‘what’, the ‘how’ and the ‘why?’ , 2005 .

[46]  J. Sheyholislami,,et al.  Critical Discourse Analysis , 2019, Research Methods for Classroom Discourse.

[47]  K. Lawson.  Philosophical concepts and values in adult education , 1975 .

[48]  Larry Selinker,et al.  ON THE USE OF INFORMANTS IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ‘LANGUAGE FOR SPECIALIZED PURPOSES’ , 1979 .

[49]  G. Storer,et al.  Research Note:: Working the Bars , 1999 .

[50]  Paul Nation,et al.  Research Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes: The specialised vocabulary of English for academic purposes , 2001 .

[51]  Ann M. Johns,et al.  English for Specific Purposes: International in Scope, Specific in Purpose , 1991 .

[52]  J. Wilson.  Connecting Speaking and Writing in Second Language Writing Instruction , 2008 .

[53]  Thomas Bloor,et al.  Languages for Specific Purposes: Practice and Theory. CLCS Occasional Paper No. 19. , 1986 .

[54]  Carolyn R. Miller.  Genre as social action , 1984 .

[55]  I. Tudor,et al.  LSP or language education , 1996 .

[56]  Alan Hirvela,et al.  “Disciplinary portfolios” and EAP writing instruction , 1997 .

[57]  Denise E. Murray,et al.  Using the Web to Support Language Learning , 2006 .

[58]  Anis Bawarshi,et al.  Genre and the invention of the writer , 2003 .

[59]  Sunny Hyon,et al.  Text, role, and context: Developing academic literacies , 1998 .

[60]  K. Boudin.  Participatory Literacy Education behind Bars: AIDS Opens the Door. , 1993 .

[61]  P. Robinson,et al.  Esp Today: A Practitioner's Guide , 1991 .

[62]  Dan Douglas,et al.  Assessing language for specific purposes , 2000 .

[63]  C. Geertz.  Local Knowledge: Further Essays In Interpretive Anthropology , 1983 .

[64]  Alan Waters,et al.  English for specific purposes : a learning-centred approach , 1987 .

[65]  Devitt.  Writing Genres , 2006 .

[66]  Ann M. Johns,et al.  Heritage and Innovation in Second Language Education , 2001 .

[67]  Ann M. Johns,et al.  Genre in the Classroom : Multiple Perspectives , 2001 .

[68]  Katherine A. Clinton,et al.  Limits of the Local: Expanding Perspectives on Literacy as a Social Practice , 2002 .

[69]  A. Canagarajah,et al.  “Nondiscursive” Requirements in Academic Publishing, Material Resources of Periphery Scholars, and the Politics of Knowledge Production , 1996 .

[70]  John M. Swales,et al.  Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings , 1993 .

[71]  R. Wodak.  Critical Discourse Analysis , 2003 .

[72]  John B. Newman,et al.  Speaking and writing , 1965 .

[73]  Alastair Pennycook,et al.  Vulgar Pragmatism, Critical Pragmatism, and EAP. , 1997 .

[74]  Matthew Peacock,et al.  Research Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes , 2001 .

[75]  Catherine F. Schryer,et al.  Records as Genre , 1993 .

[76]  B. Cope,et al.  The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Teaching Writing , 1993 .

[77]  Diane Belcher,et al.  Academic writing for graduate students: A course for nonnative speakers of English. 253pp. Academic writing for graduate students: Commentary John M. Swales & Christine B. Feak. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994, 117 pp , 1995 .

[78]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[79]  Norman F. Davies.  Explorations in applied linguistics , 1980 .