DESIGNING AN ESP COURSE
DESIGNING AN ESP COURSE

Summary/Abstract: Designing an ESP course in an academic setting is a multidimensional challenge. To meet it, we should address the needs and interests of our students, which in most cases means incorporating subject-specific content (specialized vocabulary, typical genres, authentic materials, discourse communities practices) into a language course. This on the practitioners’ part involves tackling their lack of disciplinary expertise, which might be very difficult for various factors. One of them might be difficulty in gaining expertise due to a wider curriculum and institutional policies (like teaching many ESPs at the same time). Another might be finding the right balance between discipline-based knowledge and pure language on such a course. It seems that the adequate language teaching expertise which the practitioners should possess in order to help students start using the language as a communication tool for their academic and occupational purposes, can be achieved through a careful choice of the syllabus type to be adopted, the academic skills and genres to be practised, the specialized topics for the language to be presented and reliable sources of materials to raise motivation and serve as an example.

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