Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

particular attention to this skill only after the successful
completion of a general course in all the skills. This is a very
important premise, with implications for all ESP teaching,
and there is considerable debate about it. One possible
solution is illustrated by the following case.
A group of Spanish shopkeepers wanted to learn enough
oral English to deal with British tourists. They were given a
course in general English with certain special provisions.
There was considerable oral emphasis, but written work and
reading were insisted on too—partly for variety as it is quite
possible to tire very quickly of a lot of oral work, and partly
because the written word consolidates and reinforces what has
been learnt orally. The basic grammatical structures that were
taught remained essentially the same as in the regular courses,
as did the emphasis on clear but natural pronunciation.
However, the lexical items taught to fill the slots in the
grammatical patterns were very carefully chosen to meet the
needs of the shopkeepers—often statistically infrequent, but in
this case useful, items were taught before the more generally
common words.

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The content of what was taught was also determined on a
functional basis—how to make requests, answer requests,
persuade people to buy things and other similar notions of
direct relevance to the shopkeeper. The teaching strategy was
to make extensive use of situations familiar to the students
and of role-playing and simulation exercises within those
situations. This case illustrates how a course in general
English can be adapted to the specific needs of a given group
of learners. A tailor-made course is nearly always essential.
ESP is by no means restricted to the institutional
framework of state-run Higher Education. There is
enormous expansion currently in ESP in evening institutes of
a semiofficial nature, and primarily in private language
schools in England and abroad. The field is wide and
infinitely varied, and not given to easy generalisations.
P.Robinson’s English for Specific Purposes provides a
bibliographical survey. More recently, C.Kennedy and
R.Bolitho’s English for Specific Purposes gives a good
introduction to the theory and practice in this field.