This document discusses reading in English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It begins by noting that reading is often cited as the easiest skill for ESP students, but is actually the most important. The document then covers the foundations and emerging perspectives of reading in ESP. It discusses how ESP initially focused on language at the sentence level but shifted to discourse analysis. It also explores textbooks and vocabulary instruction in reading. Finally, it discusses reading in an integrated skills context, including genre-based approaches and their positive effects found in research studies.

1. ESP and
READING
By: Shanen Allison Braga
Glicel Felicia
Anajean Jandayan
Alan Hirvela

2. Reading occupies
what might be
called a curious
place in English
for Specific
Purposes (ESP)
“In any self-assessment
or questionnaire-based
survey, students
almost always cite
reading as the skill
causing them the least
difficulty.”
- Jordan (1997)

3. “It will come as no surprise to
most people to discover that in
ESP terms, by far the most
significant skill is that of
reading.”
–McDonough (1984)

4. Lesson Overview
• Foundations Of Reading In
ESP
• Emerging Pedagogical
Perspectives In Reading
• Researches On Reading
• Business English

5. Foundation
of Reading
in ESP

6. F O U N DA T I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
“The pendulum may have
swung too far in the
direction of speech, and
many teachers are now
seeking to increase the effort
applied to learning and
teaching a command of the
written language and
especially to the learning and
teaching of reading.”
-Peter Stevens, 1997
English is the
language of
textbooks and
journals.
-McDonough (1984)

7.  Initial Stage
“the analysis had been of the surface forms
of language”---
 Register analysis- study at the sentence
level of the use of language in different
communicative settings.
FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N DAT I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
REGISTER ANALYSIS.
ESP focused on language at the sentence level

8.  Second Phase
“attention is shifted to the level above the
sentence, as ESP became closely involved
with the emerging field of discourse or ”---
FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N DAT I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
DISCOURSE OR RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

9. FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N DAT I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
“They (readers) were interested in how discoursal
elements in the text “primed” the reading and
understanding of them.” –Widdowson (1979)
English in
Focus
-Allen and Widdowson
(1974)
Began to look
at longer
stretches of
texts

10. FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N DAT I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
English for Science and Technology (EST) was a
primary site for the creation of the foundations of
ESP in reading instruction and research.
Episodes in
ESP
-Swales (1985)
Teach the discourse
analysis, especially
in the sciences.

11. FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N DAT I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
University of
Washington
-Louis and Mary Todd Trimble
Larry Selinker
Discourse analysis to
reading

12. FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N DAT I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
English for Science and Technology: A Discourse
Approach by Louis Trimble
The rhetorical approach to teaching non-native speakers how to
read (and secondarily how to write) scientific and technical
English Discourse is built around three main rhetorical
concepts:
1. The nature of the EST paragraph
2. The rhetorical techniques most commonly used in written
EST discourse
3. Rhetorical functions most frequently found in written EST
discourse

13. FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N D A T I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
Transfer of knowledge and skills from one
skill to another:
Trimble
(1985)
“writing is the best approach
as a transfer technique”.
“Visual-verbal relationships are a
very useful tool to exploit when
teaching reading or when
transferring the teaching emphasis
to writing.”

14. FROM REGISTER ANALYSIS
TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
F O U N D A T I O N S O F R E A D I N G I N E S P
“Reading was increasingly being taught from the
perspective of text providing the information rather
than their purely linguistic purposes”.
Developments in
English for
Specific
Purposes
Dudley Evans & St
John (1998)
TALO (text as linguistic object)
TAVI (text as vehicle for
information)
TAVI (text as vehicle for
information)

15. A genre comprises a class of communicative events,
the members of which share some set of
communicative purposes. These purposes are
recognized by expert members of the parent
discourse community, and thereby constitute the
rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the
schematic structure of the discourse and influences
and constrains choice of content and style.
Genre Analysis
• “the doyen of ESP genre studies” –John Swales
Genre Analysis:
English in
Academic and
Research
Settings

16. Swales at University of
Aston
• Moves analysis framework- has been a core
feature of genre research and pedagogy in
ESP, including reading pedagogy.
• 2 pronged approach
-the class can be divided into two kinds:
1. Study of Article introductions
2. Writing tasks

17. Emerging
Perspectives and
Research on
Reading

18. Pedagogy
ESP’s pragmatism as a central
driving force in the field.
Pragmatism- “its (ESP) eagerness to
be responsive to learners’ target
language academic and
occupational needs.” –Belcher
(2004)
Emerging Perspective and Research on Reading

19. “ Reading is sometimes taught on its own as a
separate skill, sometimes in conjunction with
writing, and sometimes as a component of a
study skills programme. Whether a single skill or
an integrated approach is taken, the main focus of
reading instruction often tends to be the
development of sub-skills related to extracting
different types of information from texts, such as
skimming for gist and scanning for specific
details.” –Bruce (2011)

20. “When students read, it is for a
purpose.” -Jordan (1997)
•Two primary frameworks (Bruce,
2011)
1. Reading as a stand-alone skill
2. Reading in an Integrated skills
framework
Emerging Perspective and Research on Reading

21. TEACHING READING SKILLS
TEXTBOOKS
VOCABULARY
READING AS A STAND-
ALONE SKILL

22. READING AS A STAND-ALONE SKILL
1. Teaching reading skills
• Use of carefully selected pre-reading materials
-Huang, Cheng, and Chern (2006)

23. • Pedagogy is oriented toward a
“location” mode
“The student rarely
comes ‘blind’ to the
business of reading.”
“the most necessary
skill is that of locating
the relevant or
desired information
in the text”

24. • Explicit teaching of metadiscourse features
• The effects of instruction on students’
reading comprehension.
• Conclusion: “Metadiscourse can have
positive influence on comprehension”
CRAWFORD CAMICIOTTOLI (2003)

25. LINN AND MUNBY (1996)
• Qualitative study of the metacognitive reading
strategy use
• Conclusion: “Some of the comprehension
strategies taught in general purpose English
courses may not be useful in specialized English
reading .”
• Students need to vary their strategies as the
reading requires”

26. DHIEB-HENIA (2003)
• Effects Metacognitive strategy among
university students studying Biology
• Conclusion: Metacognitive reading
strategy enhanced their comprehension of
research articles in that discipline.

27. MARTINEZ (2002)
• Exposing undergraduate EST students to
five versions of an authentic text
• Conclusion: The more the students
recognized and understood the rhetorical
features guiding organization of the text,
the more effectively they read.

28. PRITCHARD AND NASR (2004)
• Engineering students in Egypt
• Positive values accruing from training
students in using textual and contextual
clues and exposing them to authentic texts
in their discipline.

29. HALL ET AL (1986)
• Problems encountered by EST students at a
university in Thailand
• Course approach based on “information
structuring” of the ways in which ideas were
organized.
• Emphasis on “macro-cohesion” (links between
content ranging across the texts and outside the
text) and on “micro-cohesion” (discourse
connections between sentences)

30. BLANTON (1984)
• Propose a “hierarchical model” of
reading instruction in which students
work through a carefully sequenced set
of reading tasks
• The “hierarchical nature of academic
discourse”

31. SPECTOR-COHEN, KIRSCHNER, AND
WEXLER (2001)
• Approach that include four parts:
1. A focus on linguistic forms
2. The teaching of reading strategies
3. Introduction to typical academic
genre/rhetorical forms
4. “criterion tasks”- set of tasks

32. TEACHING READING SKILLS
TEXTBOOKS
VOCABULARY
READING AS A STAND-
ALONE SKILL

33. 2. Textbooks
First exposure to writing in their target
discourse community
“Studies of textbook discourses have so far
been largely restricted to introductory
textbooks in standard undergraduate
fields.” –Swales (1995)
Reading as a Stand-alone Skill

34.  Textbooks in the field of geology
 ESP students may be stymied by discipline-
specific texts because their already existing
schema for reading are not appropriate for
comprehending specialized texts
 Students strive to create a “cognitive model for
the discipline”
 Introductory textbooks will exhibit both a
schematic structure and a set of lexico-
grammatical patterns which reflect and, to
certain extent, construct the epistemology of the
discipline.
Love (1991, 1993)

35. Limitations of introductory textbooks
Comparative analysis of textbooks and
journal articles
Textbooks will not show students how
pronouns or hedges might be used in
their writing
Textbooks will not show how reference
or illustrations are used rhetorically,
because textbooks use them
pedagogically
Myers (1992)

36.  Compared textbooks to articles in the use of
hedges and use of metadiscourse
 21 introductory textbooks in 3 disciplines
 “These differences mean that textbooks
provide limited rhetorical guidance to students
seeking information from research sources or
learning appropriate forms of argument”
 “Learning a discipline through the linguistic
forms of textbooks does not introduce students
to the full range of conventions within which
the socio-cultural system of the discipline is
encoded.”
Hyland (1994, 1999)

37. “If we, as teachers, keep in mind
several genres in mind, instead of
focusing on textbooks as the
genre that students first
encounter, we may be able to
help students respond more
easily, and more critically, to the
texts they encounter later in their
careers.”
Solution: Myers (1992)

38. TEACHING READING SKILLS
TEXTBOOKS
VOCABULARY
READING AS A STAND-
ALONE SKILL
How important is
VOCABULARY?

39. Reading as a Stand-alone Skill
3. Vocabulary
• “a typical two-or-three-hour a week ESP
course would not have the time or space
necessary to teach all of the specialized
vocabulary students need to learn” –
Williams (1985)

40. Five Vocabulary Learning
strategies for ESP
1. Inferring from context
2. Identifying lexical familiarization
3. Unchaining nominal compounds
4. Synonym search
5. Word analysis

41. • Pre-corpus approach- traditional
approach to literature on reading.
• Salager (1983)- constructed a corpus of
vocabulary used in medical English texts
• Moss (1992)- studied the importance of
cognate recognition
“a strategy of structured and graded practice
in cognate recognition”

42. Ward (1999)
• Study: Experiences in reading of undergraduate
engineering students in Thailand in reading
English language textbooks in their chosen
disciplines
• How large a vocabulary do EAP engineering
students need?
• Conclusion: Engineering students would benefit
more from early exposure to an engineering
English corpus and, in combination with that
corpus, would need a general vocabulary of only
2,000 word families.

43. Ward (2001)
• “textbook reading: Students avoided the
vocabulary by concentrating their attention on
the applications, and especially the examples
given in those textbooks”
Ward (2009)
• Translated textbooks: significant vocabulary-
related problems among undergraduate
engineering students that made reading of
textbooks written in English difficult

44. • “Subtechnical vocabulary”
-items which are neither highly
technical nor obviously general.
-Examples cited by Baker
“others have said…”
“one explanation is…”
“it has been pointed out by…”

45. • Marshall and Gilmour (1993)
-Subtechnical vocabulary- “the words which
express the relations which exist between
the key scientific concepts”
-Study: Reading ability of over 2,000 EST
students
-Recommendations: ESP teachers should
not simply teach “lists of scientific and
technical words” but instead should also
“teach the contexts and structural relations
within which the words have meaning.”

46. Genre-based approaches
Portfolios
READING IN
INTEGRATED SKILLS
CONTEXT

47. JORDAN (1997)
“Reading as a skill has been linked with writing. This is
a fundamental characteristic of the target academic
situation in which students are typically reading books and
journals, noting, summarizing, paraphrasing, and then
writing essays, etc. In practice material for reading, the
link with writing is normally included. Although the focus
may be on various reading strategies and comprehension
practice, the resultant exercise usually involve writing
(apart from multiple-choice questions and yes/no,
true/fallsel formats).

48. “Today, genre is one of the most
important and most influential concepts
in language education.” –Hyland (2004)
framework where “students are constantly
involved in research into texts, roles, and
contexts and into the strategies they employ in
completing literary tasks within specific
situations”. –Johns (1997)
Socioliterate Competence

49. Frames- awareness of
certain core genre features
which allows students to
put texts they encounter
into the appropriate frames
and then process and
understand them based on
the textual properties of
those frames
-Paltridge, 1985

50. Tardy
(2006)
“At a range of educational levels, at
least some learners appear to be
motivated by genre-based
instruction and can develop
metalanguage for talking about
texts through such instruction.
Similarly, the rhetorical
consciousness-raising of genre-
based reading instruction may
increase students’ ability to locate
information in texts and develop a
better understanding of text’s
rhetorical elements.

51.  EAP/ESP course is linked
to:
content course + ESP teacher
 “discourse community
dilemma”-Johns (1988)
Joint cooperation of the teacher
and the disciplinary expert
addresses such a dilemma.

52. Studies regarding effects of genre-
based instruction
Henry and Roseberry (1998)
Compared 2 groups of undergraduate
students at a university
Findings: the group which received genre-
based reading and writing outperformed
the non-genre group.

53. Hyon (2001, 2002)
Findings:
Modest long term
effects for the
course, with some
students retaining
and using more of
the genre-based
reading input than
others.
Long term effect
of a genre-
based course
8 students (5
graduates, 2
undergrad, 1
employee)

54. Swales and Lindermann (2002)
 Effects of a graduate level EAP course
on the literature review writing of
graduate students.
 They developed a genre-based
pedagogy which facilitated the
connection between reading and writing
 Findings: Reported overall positive
effects

55. 
Parkinson (2007)
Findings: Both
reading
comprehension
and writing
expression
“improved
significantly.”
Approach emphasizes pre-
reading activities, discussion,
an vocabulary and
comprehension exercises.
genre-based
reading-writing
course for
students at a
university in
South Africa.

56. Hirvela (2001)
 Combination of literary and non-
literary texts in EAP writing
course at an American university
 Findings: Positive results
concerning both the literary and
non-literary texts

57. Dovey (2010)
 Two instructional contexts in which a genre-
based approach was used with post-graduate
students studying information technology
 Emphasis: Generic Ladder scaffolding
approach
 Conclusion: “With the emerging hegemony
of genre-based approaches in EAP, the
assumption that exposure to expert product
is sufficient could result in a failure to address
the full range of students’ needs.”

58. First Iteration Revised Course
Carefully sequenced set
of genre-based tasks
More scaffolding was
added to the writing-
related activities
Culminating task:
Writing of a literature
review
CulminatingTask:
Writing of a literature
review
Result:
Students did not
progress
Result:
Improved student
performance

59. Genre-based approaches
Portfolios
READING IN
INTEGRATED SKILLS
CONTEXT

60. Frodeseen
(1988)
Johns (1988) Hirvela (1997)
Discuss what they
have learned in their
reading of different
genres of texts in
their chosen
disciplinary
community.
“ethnographers of their
disciplines”
Reading Portfolio:
Results of their
disciplinary reading
“Reading Portfolio”
a detailed analysis of
what they have learned
through their
disciplinary reading,
“disciplinary portfolio
pedagogy”
“Writing Portfolio”
Writing Portfolio:
samples of their own
disciplinary writing
“sensitizing them to
the demands and
tendencies” of the
genres