ESP theory & practices

1. ESP theory & practices Dr. Fengmin Wang Fall 2008

2. What is ESP? • The EFL tree

3. The Emergence of ESP • The demands of a Brave New World --English is the key to the international currencies of technology and commerce. • A theoretical shift of linguistics --from defining the formal features of language usage to discovering the ways in which language is actually used in real world • A theoretical shift of education --focusing on learner (language-centred vs. learning- centred)

4. Why ESP? • The expansion of demand for English to suit particular needs and developments in the field of linguistics and educational psychology

5. A Learning-Centred Approach to ESP • “what people learn” v.s. “how people learn • a shift from language-centred to learning-centred approach (Introduction: p.2)

6. What is ESP curriculum design? • processes • a rationale for the course, including the overall educational goals; a framework for course design • A curriculum plan describing intended learning outcomes for the course prioritized according to importance, to be expressed in formats (lists of statements & paragraphs, maps of major ideas, flowcharts of skills) • An instructional plan • An evaluation plan

7. Terms • Curriculum: a broad description of general goals by indicating an overall educational-cultural philosophy which applies across subjects together with a theoretical orientation to language and language learning with respect to the subject matter at hand. • Syllabus: a more detailed and operational statement of teaching and learning elements which translates the philosophy of the curriculum into a series of planned steps leading towards more narrowly defined objectives at each level.

8. The Components of a Curriculum • Language view • Language learning • Educational view

9. Syllabus • Structural/grammatical syllabus • Notional syllabus (D. A. Wilkins, 1972) --semantic-grammatical categories --categories of communicative functions • Threshold Level (1975)

10. Conceptualizations of Learning: Historical Roots and Epistemological Campsby Marshall (1992) ; Mayer (1996) • work-oriented classrooms • learning-oriented classrooms • classrooms as sociocultural setting: postmodern social constructivisms (sociocultural, symbolic interactionism, social psychological constructionism, and Deweyan)

11. Work-Oriented Classrooms • Behaviorist-derived: (1900s-1950s) -- a fixed/static body of knowledge to acquire; --learning as changing the strength of stimulus-response associations --acquisition of facts, skills, and concepts through drill and guided practice

12. Learning-Oriented Classrooms • information processing (1960s-1970s) • schema-driven theory --viewing memory representations as knowledge rather than as information --learning involves constructing 3 types of schemas (memory objects, mental models, and cognitive fields) that interact during the learning process

13. Learning as Knowledge Constructing (1980s-1990s) • Cognitive constructivist Piaget: changing body of knowledge, individually constructed in social world; active construction, restructuring prior knowledge through multiple opportunities and diverse processes to connect to what is already know

14. Classrooms as Sociocultural Setting (1980s-1990s) • lesson, knowledge, role, communication are all socially constructed by members of a classroom in their interactions over time; what counts as lesson, knowledge, role, communication is situationally defined in the classroom context

15. Social constructionist Vygotsky: • changing body of knowledge, mutually constructed with others; collaborative construction of socially/culturally defined knowledge and values through socially and culturally constructed opportunities, tying to students’ experience