Current ESP Research
WHAT DOES IT TELL US ABOUT TEACHING
AND CURRICULUM DESIGN?
Why select this topic?
Because the responsibility
of every ESP practitioner is
to be a researcher …
And also…
We are not teachers of what
has always been taught,
working from a textbook or
materials produced
elsewhere for another
group of students..
ESP Teacherresearcher
Instead, we complete
on-going needs
assessments and
target situation
analyses within our
students’ own target
contexts---
 And we create materials that
Not your
students??
reflect that our own
students’ needs in the
contexts in which they are
studying or will be working.
Implications
In ESP, unlike TENOR
(Teaching English for No
Obvious Reason), research
and pedagogy constantly
are interwoven.
Implications
“Thus, our research should have
pedagogical purposes—and our
pedagogical practices are directed
by the research completed within
our specific contexts.”
(Belcher, Johns, & Paltridge, 2012, p.2)
This presentation’s purposes
• TO JUXTAPOSE PAST ESP RESEARCH AND
TEACHING PRACTICES WITH CURRENT ONES.
•T O C O N C L U D E W I T H I M P L I C A T I O N S F O R E S P
TEACHING
Brief history: ESP in EFL Contexts
 ESP was initially developed for EFL
contexts, in countries where English
was not the language of wider
communication (Swales, 1988). As a
result, much research has never been
published—or is lost---as much was
only appropriate for one context.
Research, theory, and context
 Over time, ESP research has tended to
follow the more general applied
linguistics theories, the approaches to
discourse analysis, and the research
methods currently available.
Johns, A. (2013). “History of ESP Research…”
The difference has been that our goals have
always been pedagogical. We ask:
 “What
do these theories or
research findings mean for a
specific curriculum or
classroom?”
 “How can we bring the most
authenticity possible to the
classroom? “
The Past: Science research central
 Most significant ESP research in the
1960s-1980s was about the sciences.
We still have more research about
academic scientific language and texts
than we do about any other ESP area.
(See the Episodes title.)
Other research areas
 As time passed, other ESP areas
besides science began to be
researched, e.g., the language of
business (St John, 1998) or law
(Bhatia, 1993) or student work
(Samraj, 2008).
 Still, it was written language that was
of central interest.
Currently: SEE THE PAPERS AT THIS
CONFERENCE
 Various studies of business and
technology.
 Workplace VESL/EOP.
 Academic disciplines of all types.
 ESP in the community---anyone
who uses English, e.g., tourists,
negotiators, prisoners…
Past research: (Post WW II)
 Principally bottom-up and on written texts.
Without computers and advanced data
processors, early researchers counted types
of verbs (Barber, 1962) or vocabulary (e.g.,
common content words) in the academic
disciplines (Basturkmen, 2006).
Early research approaches
 Often decontextualized: grammar and
vocabulary were taken from
discourses and studied without major
consideration for rhetorical situation,
i.e., genre, discourse structure,
audience, purposes or the context.
Currently
 Increasingly, research has been
contextualized and triangulated.
(Tarone, et. al., 1981)
 The situated nature of language
and texts is now considered in
most research.
An example from the past: Bottom-up teaching
approaches for vocabulary
In the past, ESP practitioners
believed that their chief
responsibility was to teach the
isolated, specialist vocabulary of
the students’ discipline or
profession. Materials were full of
glossaries.
Currently
 Though vocabulary is still important,
it is studied within a corpus or
selected discourses and conditions of
use and context are considered.
 Vocabulary choices are examined, for
example, for writer’s stance or as
influenced by the values of a
discipline.
Methods and research areas have also evolved
 Corpus linguistics: VERY big! See, e.g.,
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“bundling” (Csomay, 2012; Hyland, 2008)
Interviews (of specialists, students, and other
stakeholders). (Tarone, et. al. 1981)
Observation and “job shadowing” (Johns &
Price, 2013)
Contrastive work: cross-linguistic, cross-textual.
(Mauranen, 2013).
Critical self-reflection (Johns & Makalela, 2013)
And combinations of several approaches, that is,
triangulation.
“Bottom up” research and teaching:
Corpus linguistics
CORPUS LINGUISTICS (CL)
 A Recent, but major, influence
How is CL defined?
 “…a collection of pieces of
language text in electronic form,
selected according to external
criteria to represent, as far as
possible, a language or language
variety as a source of data for
linguistic research” (Sinclair,
2004).
What authenticity did CL bring?
 Bottom-up, word, phrase
and sentence-level
examinations of language
use from authentic, target
situation discourses.
CL interests
Initially, lexical frequency
(AWL), key words, and lexical
bundles (e.g., Csomay, 2012).
CL: Student involvement
 Possibilities for students to do
their own corpus studies
through examining texts at
their sites in the disciplines
and professions. (See, e.g., L.
Flowerdew, 2011, or Coxhead,
2013).
One current CL example
 Nation’s Range Program, can be
used to:
◦ 1. Compare a vocabulary list (e.g.,
AWL) with words in a text to see
what percentage appears in both.
◦ 2. Compare word usage in a
student paper with a collection of
articles or textbook prose in their
own disciplines.
But CL is MUCH more than vocabulary in texts
 See MICASE on spoken discourses and
classroom interactions.
 See Biber on his work comparing spoken and
written English and describing academic
language.
 See Hyland on disciplinary language.
 See presentations at this conference.
(References on handout.)
Published CL work
 In fact, see much of the published research
in ESPJ, EAPJ, and JSLW which uses corpus
tools to answer many of the questions we
currently have about authentic language use.
Current research: CL +
 Vocabulary study is lexical-grammatical in
many cases. Grammar and vocabulary are
integrated in CL studies.
 Corpus studies are combined with interviews
with experts or students, studies of word use
in various “texts” (e.g., lectures/textbooks)
 Choices that relate to writer’s stance or
disciplinary conventions (e.g., Hyland, 2007)
are considered.
Summary: Vocabulary +
 It can no longer be considered solely
bottom-up or isolated in glossaries
since research is triangulated and
discourse and context are considered.
 Vocabulary choices are disciplinary—
but often genre- and author-based, as
well.
Vocabulary: Teaching questions
 What vocabulary do I teach? How do I complete
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my needs assessment and target situation
research most effectively?
Do I draw from established corpus studies? If
so, which ones, and why? Or complete my own?
Do I begin by teaching a general vocabulary and
then move to more specialized words?
How do I integrate vocabulary study with
examination of discourse and context?
How do I involve students in active study of the
vocabulary that will be most useful to them?
Research and teaching : Top
down
VARIATIONS UPON ACTIVITY AND GENRE
THEORIES
How are genres defined in ESP?
 Communicative events, named by the
discourse community in which they are used
(e.g., research article, case study, grant
proposal) that serve social purposes for that
community (Johns, 2011).
 These events are recognized by certain
repeated conventions (e.g., discourse moves,
use of headings, language choices) BUT
 As individual “texts,” they may vary in a
number of ways (place of publication or
presentation, audience)….
Group work: Questions about my
presentation
Top down approaches: genre
1. What would you call this spoken text?
2. What are some of the conventions of its
structure?
3. What kinds of language seem to predominate?
4. How might this particular “text” differ from a
keynote in another context, e.g., in China?
5. How might this text differ in terms of “the
author,” in this case, the presenter? That is,
how might someone from this part of the world
present the text differently?
6. Does knowing about the genre assist you in
listening and taking notes?
Activity theory: Top down
 Representation:
What went into making this “text”? What are the
writer’s/speaker’s initial purposes? How did the
writer plan?
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What was required, e.g., research, before this
“text” was produced? What challenges did
producing this text present?
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Adapted from J. Walker (2012). Just CHATing. Handout: Illinois State
University.
Activity theory
 Distribution: How is the text being
distributed (e.g., online, through the mail)?
How does this distribution affect how it is
written and, in this case, presented?
More from activity theory
 Reception: Who will take up and use the text?
How will they read and interpret it? Will they
repurpose it in some way? (That is, what will you,
the audience, do with it?)
Ecology
 What are the factors in the context
influencing text production? For example,
are writers/speakers under pressure to
produce an article (or talk) so that they can
keep their jobs or get promoted?
 What types of pressures does the institution
or the government put upon the
writers/speakers as they produce texts?
Writer identity, stance, and engagement
 What are the power relationships between
the writer/speaker and the
reader(s)/listeners? Who runs the show?
 If the writer/speaker is predominant---or
even if s/he isn’t, what types of stances are
taken vis-à-vis the text and readers?
How are speaker/writer
relationships realized?
SEE NEXT SLIDE
McGrath, L & M. Kuteeva (2012), stance and engagement in pure mathematics
articles: Linking discourse features to disciplinary practices. ESPJ, 31 (2).
Given current approaches, how will
we go about our ESP research?
What do we do?
 Consider what is possible, or most
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important, to the classroom or curriculum.
Review previous research.
Design research questions.
Select data, e.g., “texts” for analysis
Plan methodologies (e.g., corpus work,
interviews, focus groups, observation)
Begin and continue studying needs and
target situations.
 Decide upon how the findings will be
classified and made pedagogically interesting
to students and convincing to those in power.
Conclusions
What research-based teaching includes now:
 The context (activity theory)
 Constraints of the situation, including
stake-holders.
 Active student involvement.
 Target genres and what they imply for
readers/listeners, community.
 The language and use of target genres
from the discourses and contexts.
No written or spoken text is an island; no
vocabulary or grammar stands alone.
Thus, our ESP research and
teaching work is complex and ongoing..
Thank you!
ANN M. JOHNS
AJOHNS@COX.NET
SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
CA/USA