ESP TEACHING AND
RESEARCH
Dr. Ken Lau
Assistant Professor,
Centre for Applied English Studies
The University of Hong Kong
COURSE SCHEDULE
Time
Activities
9:00-9:10
Opening Remarks
9:10-10:30
10:30-10:40
10:40-12:10
12:10-1:20
ESP Teaching and Research I: Arts and Humanities
Tea Break
ESP Teaching and Research II: Science and Engineering
Lunch
1:20-3:00
3:00-3:10
Corpus-Informed Teaching and Research I
Tea Break
3:10-4:40
Corpus-Informed Teaching and Research II
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 Thanks to colleagues of the Centre for Applied English Studies
who have generously shared their course materials for
illustration purposes.
A DEFINITION
 English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has been defined by a
number of researchers. One of the most oft -cited definitions is
from Hutchison and Waters (1987) who see ESP as an approach
rather than a product, meaning that ESP does not imply a
particular kind of language, teaching material or methodology.
The central idea in their definition lies in the construct of need.
“Need is defined by the reasons for which the student is learning
English, which will vary from study purposes such as following a
postgraduate course in an English -speaking country to work
purposes such as participating in business meetings or taking
hotel bookings” (Dudley -Evans & St John, 1998, p.3).
CLASSIFICATION OF ESP
THE CASE OF CAES
Faculty
Course
Nature of the course:
EAP/EOP
Architecture
Communication Course for Architecture Students
EAP
Arts
Academic English for Arts Students
EAP
Business &
Economics
English for Academic Communication for Economics
and Finance Students
EAP
Dentistry
English for Dental Students
?
Education
Academic English for Education Students
EAP
Engineering
Professional and Technical Written/Oral
Communication for Engineers
EAP
Law
Writing Solutions to Legal Problems
EAP
Medicine
English for Clinical Clerkship
EOP/EAP
Science
Academic English for Science Students
EAP
Social Sciences
Professional Writing Skills for Social Work
EOP
NEEDS ANALYSIS
 Needs cover a wide range of issues such as learner’s goals,
backgrounds, proficiency, reasons for taking the course, the
situations where they need the communication knowledge and
skills, etc.
 Present Situation Analysis (PSA)
 Learning Situation Analysis (LSA)
 Target Situation Analysis (TSA)
PRESENT SITUATION ANALYSIS (PSA)
 PSA refers to information about learners’ current abilities,
familiarity with the written and spoken genres, their skills and
perceptions; what they are able to do and what they want at
the beginning of the course. Data can therefore be both
objective (age, proficiency, prior learning experiences) and
subjective (self-perceived needs, strengths and weaknesses).
 I have difficulty selecting appropriate word choices when writing a
feasibility report.
LEARNING SITUATION ANALYSIS (LSA)
 LSA is concerned with the learners, teachers and teaching and
learning contexts. It includes subjective, self -perceived,
process-oriented needs.
 I am more comfortable working on my own than in groups.
TARGET SITUATION ANALYSIS (TSA)
 TSA concerns the learner’s future roles and the linguistic
skills and knowledge required to perform competently in a
target context. This involves mainly objective and product oriented data: identifying the contexts of language use,
observing the language events in these contexts, listing the
genres employed, collecting and analyzing target genres .
 I have to draft an assessment report after seeing a client.
 To collect needs data, teachers can draw on a range of
dif ferent sources and techniques such as interviews,
questionnaire surveys, observations.
DISCUSSION
 Imagine you are asked by your department head to create an
ESP course for social workers entitled “Professional Writing
Skills for Social Work”. What kind of (1) writing and (2)
language needs do you plan to cover in the course?
COURSE DESIGN
How are the topics structured?
SAMPLE MATERIALS – SOCIAL WORK
SAMPLE MATERIALS – SOCIAL WORK
LANGUAGE MATERIALS – SOCIAL WORK
 The following are some of the salient language features in
social work:
 Description of behaviours and emotions
 Using non-judgmental language
 Using reported speech
DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIOURS AND
EMOTIONS
DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIOURS AND
EMOTIONS
USING NON-JUDGMENTAL LANGUAGE
USING NON-JUDGMENTAL LANGUAGE
FUNCTIONAL GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS
FUNCTIONAL GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS
FUNCTIONAL GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS
REPORTED SPEECH
WRITING SOLUTIONS TO LEGAL
PROBLEMS
 This 3-credit English enhancement
course of fered in the 2nd semester
aims to enable first -year LLB students
and 2nd year joint-degree law students
to adapt and develop their existing
language, reasoning, and study skills,
and to apply and articulate their
knowledge of tort law , as they frame a
written response to the kinds of legal
problem solution assignment.
 Only Negligence and Psychiatric Injury
are dealt with in the course.
TEACHING APPROACH
Assignment
Genre
Legal
Problem
Legal
content,
study
skills,
Legal
Practices
Progression Weeks 1/2
Disciplinary
Reasoning
“moves”
Weeks
2/3
Rhetorical
structure
Other
language
features
Weeks 3/4
AN EXAMPLE OF PQ
 One day, when walking home, William trips and falls,
damaging his knee. Several days later, while driving to work,
he sees Victor crossing the road and brakes to avoid running
into him. Unfortunately, due to the pain in William’s knee, he
cannot fully press his brake pedal and as a result he runs into
Victor. The collision occurs at a fairly slow speed and a normal
person would only have suf fered bruising as a result, but
Victor has brittle bones and suf fers two broken legs and a
number of broken ribs. He is taken to the local hospital
where, due to an administrative mistake, his right arm is
amputated.
Advise Victor.
FIRST STEP – CASE ANALYSIS
 To identify the legal issues involved and to be addressed in
the PQ
 The collision occurs at a fairly slow speed and a normal person would
only have suffered bruising as a result, but Victor has brittle bones
and suffers two broken legs and a number of broken ribs.
 Remoteness:
If the defendant is negligent, the plaintiff's right to recover damages
is not limited by the fact that his injury resulted from aggravation of
a preexisting condition. Where an injury arising from a cause which
entails liability on the defendant combines with a pre -existing
condition to bring about a greater harm to the plaintiff then would
have resulted from the injury alone, the defendant may be found
liable for all of the consequences. [Thin-skull rule]
FIRST STEP – CASE ANALYSIS
SECOND STEP –
LEGAL REASONING MOVES
Common Law Legal Reasoning Flow - IPCAC:
 Issue – Articulating the issue in terms of the parties
and the facts
 Principle – invoking a legal principle and/or rule
 Case – relying on precedent cases and/or legislation
 Application – applying precedent case and/or
legislation to the facts of the present case
 Conclusion – articulating the (recommended)
decision, and grounds for reaching it
SECOND STEP –
LEGAL REASONING MOVES
Legal Reasoning
Moves
Assuming that William is held to have caused the accident, Victor would next
have to show that the injuries she suffered were not too remote a
consequence of William’s actions. The usual rule that a D is only responsible
Issue
for harm of a foreseeable type is modified to some extent by the `thin skull’
Principle
rule. The operative principle here was set out in Smith v Leech Brain. The
Case
court held that in cases where the harm inflicted was of a foreseeable type,
the defendant will be liable for the full extent of the injury, even if the full
extent was unforeseeable. Thus, the tortfeasor is said to `take his victim as
he finds him.’ Applying this principle to the present case, the fact that Victor
Application
had brittle bones and suffered more seriously than normal people might
otherwise have been, is irrelevant. William will thus be liable to compensate
Victor for his broken legs and ribs.
Conclusion
THIRD STEP – RHETORICAL STRUCTURES
 Issue NOT Arguable - Deductive Structure
Mary was clearly prima facie in breach
of her duty. The standard of care for
Analysis
Deductive structure is
recommended – it is NOT
arguable
Mary should be a reasonable
customer’s behaviour in a supermarket
(Glasgow Corp v Muir). Being in a hurry
to get home does not suggest an
emergency or any other grounds for
holding Mary to a lower standard of
care towards the supermarket.
You don’t succeed point by
point or issue by issue –
you do that for the overall
action
THIRD STEP – RHETORICAL STRUCTURES
 Issue Arguable – Inductive Structure
Analysis / Points to
Note
We need to determine whether or not Norah’s action of
putting her basket down in Mary’s way breached her
Issue: Breach of Duty
duty to Mary. The objective standard of care of a
supermarket’s customer may indicate it was
Principle
reasonable for Norah to put down her shopping basket
in order to reach up for something like the jar of coffee
“suddenly” putting down the basket “in the way of”
Case
Application
someone walking close to her suggests she fell below
Conclusion
(Glasgow Corp v Muir). However, Norah’s action of
that standard (i.e. breached her duty).
FOURTH STEP – LANGUAGE
(CONDITIONAL SENTENCES)
PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL WRITTEN
COMMUNICATION FOR ENGINEERS
 This course aims to provide an intensive English environment
within the Engineering syllabus which will engage students in
problem solving activities that are representative of the
engineering disciplines, give you the opportunity to
communicate in English and build up their confidence in using
the language.
PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL WRITTEN
COMMUNICATION FOR ENGINEERS
 The course involves a Design and
Make Project for which students in
groups have to create an Elastic Powered Paper Vehicle (i.e. using
recycled paper to make a car which
is powered by one elastic band) with
the given specifications. The
production of the vehicle itself is not
assessed but students are assessed
on two things in relation to the
project
 Conduct a series of meeting and come
up with minutes
 Write a technical report with appropriate
diagrams
PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL WRITTEN
COMMUNICATION FOR ENGINEERS
 The followings are the sections required in the technical
report:








Summary
Introduction
Materials and Specifications
Engineering Principle
Construction Procedures 1 and 2
Test Procedure
Discussion of results
Conclusion
SAMPLE MATERIALS - ENGINEERING
STUDENTS’ WORK - ENGINEERING
SAMPLE MATERIALS - ENGINEERING
SAMPLE MATERIALS - ENGINEERING
ADVANCED ENGLISH FOR SCIENCE
STUDENTS
 Students will write a popular science journal article for a web journal targeting a non-specialist audience. Students will be
challenged to engage in spontaneous speaking task in a small
group setting while in class. Students will be provided with
guidance in developing a self -access language learning (SALL)
plan, carrying this out, and reflecting on their learning
experience and learning strategies used.
 Pre-requisite: Students taking this course have to pass the
first-year course on academic writing so students will have
already learnt how to write an essay with the use of reliable
sources and proper acknowledgements.
SPECIAL FEATURES
 An important feature of the course is the emphasis on learner
autonomy and choices. A significant proportion of the time of the
course requires students to undertake self -access language
learning. Such a decision is based on the results of the needs
analysis (see Gardner 2007 ):
 With more than 400 students taking the same course, there is a very
wide range of language abilities
 The logistical/scheduling arrangements give rise to the learning situation
that students of different majors under the same Faculty are mixed
together in a class
 According to the statistics gathered by the University in 2001, only
around 40% of the science graduates took up science -related
employments.
G a r d n e r, D . ( 2 0 07 ) . I n t e g r a t i n g s e l f - a c c e s s l e a r n i n g i n t o a n E S P c o u r s e . I n D . G a r d n e r ( e d . ) ,
L e a r n e r a u t o n o my 1 0 : I n t e g r a t i o n a n d s u p p o r t ( p p . 8 - 3 2 ) . D u b l i n : A u t h e n t i k .
CLASS ARRANGEMENTS
 In most of the sessions they are divided into two 1 -hour slots.
Half of the students will come for one hour for spontaneous
speaking practice and the other half will be working on SALL.
The arrangements will be swapped in the second hour. In
total, students are required to take part in at least 8 hours of
SALL by the end of the course.
 Students have to identify several learning goals, formulate a
study plan, look for independent learning resources and
reflect on their learning experiences.
PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL ORAL
COMMUNICATION FOR ENGINEERS
 The course introduces engineering students to professional
and technical communication in the context of oral
presentations. The course will provide an intensive English
environment within the Engineering syllabus which will
engage students in verbal communicative activities that are
representative of the engineering disciplines. Students work
in groups and individually, make decisions on gathering and
reformulating data, and select the appropriate language and
register to deliver professional presentations to a range of
audience.
PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL ORAL
COMMUNICATION FOR ENGINEERS
• Compulsory for all first-year Engineering students
(>400 students)
• 12 weeks, 24 contact hours
• Three presentation assessments
(Diagnostic Pair, Group and Individual)
• Out-of-class learning component
•
Self-Access and Reflection (SAR) Record
Two weaknesses
identified by the
teacher
Weakness identified by
the student
Self Assessment and
Reflection
Evaluation of resources
chosen and used, and
the quality of reflection
Improvement shown in
the next presentation
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS