The Development of ESP

The development of ESP it is now in a fourth phase with a fifth phase of development starting to
emerge from it is previous three main phases of development started in the early beginnings of
1960s.

1. The concept of special languange : register analysis

This stage operates on the basic principle that the English, of, say, Electrical Enginering constituted a
spesific register different from other registers such Biology or of General English. The aim of the
analysis was to identify the grammatical and lexical features of the registers.

The main motive behind register analyses such as Ewer and latorre s was the pedagogic one of
making the ESP course more relevant to learners needs. The aim was to produce a syllabus which
gave high priority to the languange forms students would meet in their Science studies and in turn
would give low priority to forms they would not meet.

2. Beyond the sentence : rhetorical or discourse analysis

On the second phase of development, ESP became closely involved with the emerging field of
discourse or rhetorical analysis. This phase gives more understanding how sentences were combined
in discourse to produce meaning.

The basic hypothesis of this stage, expressed by Allen and Widdowson (1974): The difficulties which
the students encounter arise not so much from a defective knowledge of the system of English, but
from an unfamiliarity with English use, and that consequently their needs cannot be met by a course
which simply provides further practice in the composition of sentences, but only by one which
develops a knowlede of how sentences are used in the performance of different communicative
acts.

Register analysis had focussed on sentence grammar, but in rhetorical or discourse analysis, the
attention and focus is to understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce
meaning.
The concern of research, therefore was to identify the organisational patterns in texts and to specify
the linguistic means by which these patterns are signalled. These patterns would then form the
syllabus of the ESP course.

The typical teaching materials based on the discourse approach taught students to recognise textual
patterns and discourse markers.

3. Target situation analysis

On the third phase development of ESP, it aimed was to take the existing knowledge and set it on a
more scientific basis, by establishing procedures for relating languange analysis more closely to
learner s reasons for learning.
The ESP course design process should proceed by first identifying the target situation and then
carrying out a rigorous analysis of the linguistic features of that situation. The identified features will
form the syllabus of the ESP course.
This stage process is usually known as needs analysis , but according to Chambers (1980) term of
target situation analysis , it is more accurate description of the process concerned.
4. Skills and strategies

The fourth stage of ESP has seen an attempt to look below the surface and to consider not the
languange itself but the thinking processes that underlie languange use.

The principal idea behind the skill-centred approach is that underlying all languange use there are
common reasoning and interpreting processes, which, regardless of the surface forms, enable the
students to extract meaning from discourse.

The focus should be on underlying interpretive strategies, which enable the learner to cope with the
surface forms, for example guessing the meaning of words from context, using visual layout to
determine the type of text, exploiting cognates (words which are similar in the mother tongue and
the target languange).

A focus on spesific subject registers is unnecessary in this approach, because the underlying
processes ae not specific to any subject register.

As has been noted, in terms of materials this approach generally puts the emphasis on reading or
listening strategies. The characteristic exercises get the learners to reflect on analyse how meaning is
produced in and retrieved from written or spoken discourse.

5. A learning-centred approach

All of the stages outlined so far have been fundamentally flawed, in that they are all based on
descriptions of languange use. Whether this description is of surface forms, as in the case of register
analysis, or of underlying processes, as in the skills and strategies approach, the concern in each case
is with describing what people do with languange. A trully vaid approach to ESP must be based on an
understanding of the processes of languange learning.

Conclusion

All of the stages described so far are the stages of the development of ESP from it is started in the
early beginnings on the 1960s until todays uses. These stages started by identifying and analysing
learners register and focused on sentence level, and on second stages. ESP became closely
involved with the emerging field of discourse or rhetorical analysis.

On third stages, what to aimed to do was to take the existing knowledge and set it on a more
scientific basis, by establishing procedures for relating laguange analysis more closely to learners
reasons for learning. On the fourth stages the focus is in underlying strategies.