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Contextualizing ESP

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As discussed before, ESP (English for Specific Purposes) is not a new approach in the teaching area; yet it is becoming more and more influential in English teaching because it takes into account the real needs of students instead of the teachers' assumptions. But, what role do these needs have in teaching? What difference do they make in the process?  According to Anthony “ESP is an approach to language teaching that targets the current and/or future academic or occupational needs of learners, focuses on the necessary language, genres, and skills to address these needs, and assists learners in meeting these needs through the use of general and/or discipline specific teaching materials and methods.” (Anthony & Routledge, 2018) Consequently, the students’ needs are the key point in deciding where a course is going. Now, there has to be an analysis of those needs in order to fulfill them appropriately because even though ESP does not normally focus on language, that may b...
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Specificity in ESP

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How is specificity related to ESP? What is its role in the teaching-learning process? According to Oxford dictionary, specificity can be taken as t he quality of belonging or relating uniquely to a particular subject . Having this definition, it can be said that specificity is related to ESP (English for Specific Purposes) because it involves having or focusing on specific topics according to the field of expertise. Now, what is its role in the teaching and learning process? Cheng (2011) presents the following figure to highlight the interaction that exists among the basic considerations in ESP teaching and learning. These factors were established, in order to organize the different aspects that happen and correlate during the process. These specific considerations remind us of what goes on in the classroom. For some people may be obvious to some extend because those thoughts are all the elements that are faced every day in the teaching lives. Yet, for some reason they have bec...
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Identity in the class

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I was talking to a friend about identity and the way it may change through life. Do you speak other languages? Do you think you changed because of that? Is your identity different in both languages? While discussing these questions, I realized that identity plays a huge role a learner’s process. Yet, I have never thought about it from the teacher’s perspective or even considered the effect of taking it into account in the class. ESP focuses on the learners needs and how the whole learning process should evolve around them in order to accomplish a more meaningful and personalized experience taking into account at the same time various factors that contribute to the enhancement of it. Identity, then, becomes a newfangled factor in the equation because it may point to a side of learners that is not usually cared for. Identity could transform a simple class into a convergent space for distinct people to evolve while allowing them to feel and create a sense of belonging. Belcher, Johns, ...
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