Developments in English For Specific Purposes A multidisciplinary Approach chapter 8
1. In the name of God
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Chapter 8 Course Design
Chapter aims:
Discuss the steps and criteria for an
integrated approach to course design
Suggest an organizational framework for
grouping and ordering course items
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Parameters of a course design:
1) Should the course be intensive or extensive
2) Should the learners performance be assessed or non-
assessed
3) Should the course deal with immediate needs or with delayed
needs?
4) Should the role of the teacher be that of the provider of
knowledge and activities , or should it be as a facilitator of
activities arising from learners’ expresses wants?
5) Should the course have a broad or narrow focus?
6) Should the course be pre-study or pre-experience or run
parallel with that study or experience?
7) Should the material be common-core or specific to learners
study or work?
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8) Should the group taking the course be homogeneous or
should it be heterogeneous?
9) Should the course design be worked out by the language
teacher after consultation with the learners and institution,
or should it be subject to a process of negotiation with
learners?
Parameters of a course design:
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Intensive or extensive?
Definition:
Intensive:
Extensive:
during an intensive ESP course the learners’ time is
totally committed to that ESP course
an extensive ESP course occupies only a small part of
a student’s timetable or a professional person’s work
schedule
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Advantages of Intensive courses
The students are totally focused on their purpose
for learning English.
If the course is residential, they can be immersed in
an English-language environment, even outside the
actual class session
They have no distraction.
Because of availability of time, a great deal of
variety in the activities can be introduced.
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Disadvantages of Intensive courses
❑ Without reinforcement, what is learnt on the
intensive course may lie dormant
❑ With longer courses the total concentration on
English and the absence of academic or
professional activity may become increasingly
artificial.
❑ Decline in students’ motivation
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Advantages of extensive courses
❑ The course can run in parallel with the subject course or the
professional activity and can relate to it, adopt to it as the learners’
experience or needs change, and generally remain flexible.
❑ Can increase motivation in EAP situations. How?
In EAP situations where the ESP course is part of the timetable and the
learners are assessed, the profile of ESP as a subject is raised, thereby
increasing motivation.
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Disadvantages of extensive courses
❑ The main disadvantage of the extensive course is the potential lack
of continuity between classes, particularly if the classes are
infrequent(Robinson, 1991).
Each class and the material for it may have to be self contained in
terms of both the aims of the class and the material used, which does
not allow for carry-over between classes.
9. Advantages of assessed course in EAP
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Assessed or non-assessed
disadvantages of assessed course in EAP
a) It raises the status of the subject and should ensure that it is taken
seriously by both students and the departments
a) Different groups may be taught by different teachers but take the
same test validity issues
b) Because of validity issues, the teacher may lost freedom in the
choice of topics and materials used on the course
Short intensive EOP courses are not usually concerned with
testing learners’ proficiency
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Immediate or delayed needs
Immediate needs:
Refers to those needs that students have
at the time of the course
Refers to those needs that will become
more significant later
Delayed needs:
The main point is that, any pre-experience course, weather EAP or
EOP, is by definition a course that deals with delayed needs.
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Role of the teacher in ESP courses
Teacher as a provider of input
The role of ESP teacher is very important and
controversial. In many situations the teacher
expects, or expected, to control the class, provide
information about skills and language, to control the
activities. In these situations the role of the teacher
generally matches the expectations of the learners.
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Role of the teacher in ESP courses
Teacher as a facilitator or consultant
In this case, the ESP teacher manages the class rather than control. s/he
will often get members of the class to bring material for exploitation in the
class. A development of this is where the teacher knows relatively little
about the content or the skill that is being taught In the ESP class, and
proceeds by pulling together and organizing the information that learners
are able to provide about the language or skill. In a sense, the ESP teacher
becomes an equal with the students, but uses his or her greater
knowledge of the language to help them interpret what is happening in the
course.
This role is a difficult one to adopt for any teacher, specially an
inexperienced one and also in many cultures it is a role that is alien to
traditional view of the role of the teacher
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Broad or narrow focus
By a broad focus we refer to a situation where we concentrate on a range
of target events, such as study or professional skills, or a variety of genres.
The focus is broad because of the range of target events covered, but this
does not imply that the skills are taught in general and superficial manner.
A broad focus has the advantages that it allows us to deal with a number of
skills even if the actual need is one skill.
For example, in a specific focus in ESP course, students will welcome
some general conversational work, or some presentation of background
information about Britain, the USA, or other English speaking countries.
Introducing some variety of this kind provides a broad focus for the course.
Broad focus
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Broad or narrow focus
By narrow focus (Williams, 1978) we mean that we concentrate on a few
target events, for example just the listening skill, or just one or two genres.
A narrow focus does not necessarily mean that we only use specific carrier
content for teaching material. We may focus narrowly on one or two skills,
but use a wide range of general and specific carrier content to teach those
skills and related language.
A narrow focus is appropriate where the needs are limited and the learners
are convinced of the importance of concentrating just on those needs
Narrow focus
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Pre-experience or parallel with experience
By pre-experience we mean that the learners do not have experience of
the target situation at the time of the ESP course.
Pre-experience ESP course
By parallel with experience we mean that the English course runs
concurrently with the study course or professional activity.
Parallel with experience ESP course
The main point is that, we have to bear in mind we can not assume too
much subject knowledge in the materials and need to focus on more
common-core study or professional skills, because institutions or
companies often send groups for English training before they have had
too much professional or academic experience.
Second point is that, there is always an advantage in teaching ESP to
learners who already have some subject or professional knowledge. Why?
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Common-core or specific material
By common-core material we mean material that uses career content
which is either of a general academic nature or of a general professional
nature.
Common-core materials
By specific material we mean that the material uses carrier content that is
drawn directly from the learners’ academic or professional area, such as
topics that EAP students are following in their subject course.
Specific materials
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Homogeneous or heterogeneous groups
A Homogeneous group is a group which it’s members are from one
discipline or profession.
Homogeneous group
A Heterogeneous group is a group which it’s members are from different
discipline or profession.
Heterogeneous group
Difficult to introduce much specific work. Appropriate to look for topics and
activities that are common to the various interests in the group.
If we have the option, it is better to set up homogeneous groups for ESP
classes. If it is not possible for all sessions, then we should push for the
opportunity to break groups down into homogeneous groups for at least
some of the time.
Some points with regard Heterogeneous/homogeneous groups:
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Where groups are homogeneous, the ESP teacher has much more
flexibility and choice about whether to use more specific materials, or
to incorporate some specific materials into an essentially common-
core course.
there should be a balance between specific and common-core
materials. In situations where it is possible to use specific materials it
may be desirable to use some common-core materials.
Some points with regard Heterogeneous/homogeneous groups:
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Fixed course design or flexible negotiated course design
A fixed course design is laid down in advance of the course and is rarely
deviated from.
Fixed course design:
A flexible and negotiated course design allows room for change based on
feedback from learners.
Flexible and negotiated course design:
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Fixed course design or flexible negotiated course design
Some key points:
Where an EAP course is part of the subject’s timetable, and is assessed, it
is important to ensure that all students have covered the same material
and this will lead to a need for a more or less fixed course design.
Retrospective syllabus:
In flexible negotiated course design, it is often the policy that a record is
kept of the decisions made by the group about what should be taught and
what skills and language this entails, and how much time was spent on
each aspect of the course. Such records have been referred to as
‘retrospective’ syllabus.
A middle position on the continuum may well be used with a course
following a more or less fixed design that also allows for some time to be
spent on topics and issues that learners raise themselves.
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Developing a course outline
As we saw in previous slides, there are many factors to consider and a
variety of situations in which courses are designed. Course design should
be about what and why.
A first stage in course design is to fill in whatever information we have,
without attempting to order it. Some of the items are the result of the needs
analysis, other items stem from existing courses and available materials.
when we believe we have all the key items we should go through 4 steps:
Ordering target events
The role of the materials
Timetabling
The role of assessment and evaluation
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Ordering: criteria for prioritizing
For the purpose of ordering, we should begin with target events and
rhetorical awareness
Target events:
events in which the learners want to operate successfully. For example,
writing laboratory reports
Target events need to be ordered. One criterion is according to when
the target events are needed by the learners
The second key criterion is that using or learning certain language or
skill is dependent on others. The linguistic building blocks must
therefore come before or at the same time as they are needed.
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Now that we have ordered target events, we should go to skill areas
For example, we can break down writing assignments into four skill
areas:
1.Writing a good introduction
2.Citing sources and attributing ideas
3.Writing in an academic style
4.Discussing data
Within those the students needed to develop an awareness of how to
handle other’s ideas, what is acceptable to use, what should be quoted,
what should be termed plagiarism.
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The role of materials
The material has two key roles in ESP course design:
The final choice of some features to be taught and the order they are
taught in will come from the materials we select.
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Timetabling
Through timetabling, a final order for the course outline and a time
allocation are reached.
In this step, we think about how to teach materials and how long different
activities would require. That gives us a feel for whether everything could
be included and which items had to have less time allocated to them.
