English for Special Purposes Approaches to Course Design 3 main approacheskd ;

1. Wenlie Jean B. Tumana

2. What is a course
Design?

3. It is the process by which the raw
data about a learning need is
interpreted to produce an
integrated series of teaching-
learning experiences.

4. What is its aim?

5.  To lead the learners to a particular state of
knowledge. This entails the use of the
theoretical and empirical information
available to produce a syllabus,
 to develop a methodology for teaching
those materials and
 to establish evaluation procedures by which
progress towards the specified goals will be
measured.

6.  What learners need and want may conflict.
We must remember that there are external
constraints (classroom facilities/time) that
will restrict what is possible.
 We also have to take into account our own
theoretical views and experiences of the
classroom.
 There are many different approaches to
ESP course design.

8.  The simplest and more familiar kind to
English teachers.
 It aims to draw as direct a connection as
possible between the analysis of the target
situation and the content of the ESP
course.

10. Weaknesses:
1. It starts from the learner and their needs.
- the learner is simply used as a means of
identifying the target situation.
- it is not a learner-centered, but simply learner-
restricted.

11. 2. It is a static and inflexible
procedure, which can take little account
of the conflicts and contradictions that
are inherent in any human endeavor.

12. 3. It appears to be systematic.
4. It gives no acknowledgement to
factors which must inevitably play in the
creation of any course. Data is not
important in itself.

13. 5. The Lg-centered analysis of target
situation data is only at the surface level. It
reveals very little about the competence that
underlies the performance.

14. Language-centered approach fails to
recognize the fact that, learners being
people, learning is not a
straightforward, logical process.

16.  It is a reaction to the idea of specific
registers of English as a basis for ESP and to
the practical constraints on learning
imposed by limited time and resources.
 Its aim is not to provide a specified corpus
of linguistic knowledge but to make the
learners into better processors of
information.

17. 2 Principles:
1. Theoretical hypothesis – underlying any language
behavior are certain skills and strategies, which
the learner uses to produce or comprehend
discourse.
 A skills-centered approach aims to et away from
the surface performance data and look at the
competence that underlies the performance
 Therefore, a sills-centered course will present its
learning objectives in terms of both performance
and competence.

18. General objective (i.e. performance level):
The students will be able to catalogue books written
in English
Specific Objectives (i.e. competence level):
The students will be able to:
1. Extract the gist of a text by skimming through it.
2. Extract relevant information from the main parts
of the book.

19. 2. The pragmatic basis for the skills-centered
approach derives from a distinction made by
Widdowson (1981) between goal-oriented
courses and process-oriented ones.

20.  In ESP the main problem is usually one of time
available and student experience. First, the
aims may be defined in terms of what is
desirable,
- i.e. to be able to read in the literature of the
student’s specialism, but there may be
nowhere near enough time to reach this aim
during the period of the course.
Secondly, the students may be in their first year
of studies with little experience of the literature
of their specialism.

21.  The emphasis in the ESP course is not on
achieving a particular set of goals, but on
enabling the learners to achieve what they
can within the given constraints:
 ‘The process-oriented approach is at least
realistic in concentrating on strategies and
processes of making students aware of their
own abilities and potential, and motivating
them to tackle target texts on their own
after the end of the course, so that they
can continue to improve.’

22.  The role of needs analysis in this approach is
twofold:
1. It provides a basis for discovering the underlying
competence that enables people to perform in
the target situation.
2. It enables the course designer to discover the
potential knowledge and abilities that the
learners bring to the ESP classroom.

23.  This approach takes the learner more into
account:
 It reviews language in terms of how the mind of
the learner processes it rather that as an entity in
itself.
 It tries to build on the positive factors that the
learner bring to the course (previous knowledge),
rather that just on the negative idea of ‘lacks’.
 It frames its objectives in open-ended terms, so
enabling learners to achieve at least something.

24. This approach still approaches the
learner as a user of language rather
than as a learner of language. The
processes it is concerned with are the
processes of language use not of
language learning.

25. Identify target
situation
Theoretical
views of lg
Theoretical
views of
learning
Analyse skills/
strategies
required to
cope in target
situation
Select texts
and write
exercises to
focus on skills/
strategies in
syllabus
Write
syllabus
Establish
evaluation
procedures
which require
the use of
skills /
strategies in
syllabus

27. Learner-centered approach Learning-centered Approach
 It is based on the principle that
learning is totally determined by
the learner even though
teachers can influence what is
taught.
 The learner is one factor to
consider in the learning process,
but not the only one.
 It is seen as a process in which the
learner use what knowledge or skills
they have to make sense of the flow
of new information.
 It is an internal process, which is
crucially dependent upon the
knowledge the learner already have
and their ability and motivation to
use it.
 It is a process of negotiation between
individuals and the society. Society
sets the target and the individuals
must do their best to get as close to
that target as is possible.

28. Identify target situation
Analyse target situation
Analyse learning situation
Write syllabus
Write materials
Teach materials
Evaluate learner achievements
A lg- centred approach
considers the learner to here.
A skills- centred approach
considers the learner to here.
A learning- centred approach
must consider the learner at
every stage

29.  This approach has 2 implications:
1. Course design is a negotiated process. The ESP
learning situation and the target situation will
both influence the nature of the syllabus,
materials, methodology and evaluation.
2. Course design is a dynamic process. It doesn’t
move in a linear fashion. Needs and resources
vary with time. The course design, therefore,
needs to have built-in feedback channels to
enable the course to respond to developments.

30.  If we took a learning-centered approach, we would need to ask
further questions and consider other factors, before
determining the content and methodoly of the course:
1. What skills are necessary to be taught?
2. What are the implications for methodology of having a mono-
skill focus?
3. How will the learners react to doing tasks involving other
skills?
4. Do the resources in the classroom allow the use of other skills?
5. How will the learners react to discussing things in the mother
tongue?
6. How will the learners’ attitudes vary through the course? Will
they feel motivated?
7. How do learners feel about reading as an activity?

31. Identify learners
Theoretical views
of learning
Analyse learning
situation
Analyse target
situation
Theoretical
view of lg
Identify attitudes/
wants/ potential of
learners
identify needs/
potential/ constraints
of learning/ teaching
situation
Identify skills
and knowledge
needed to
function in the
target situation
Write syllabus/ materials to exploit the
potential of the learning situation in
the acquisition of the skills and
knowledge required by the target
situation.
Evaluation Evaluation

32. Conclusion
 Factors concerned with learning must be brought
into play at all stages of the design process. We
have called this maximizing the potential of the
learning situation.