Approaching grammar in speech genres: reflections upon ESP teaching

Abstract

To be a reflective teacher in a field that has major discussions about the possibility of teaching the English language by focusing on both form and meaning, it is necessary to observe, analyze and improve the practice aiming at providing the students with the opportunity to participate in professional and academic contexts. Given that, the purpose of this article is to discuss about lexical and grammatical skills that are necessary for students of a Secondary Technical School to learn so as to effectively act in those target contexts, either by means of reading or producing texts. Important authors in the area of language and grammar teaching, speech genres and ESP – to name a few: Celce-Murcia & Hilles (1988), Celce-Murcia (2002), Tonkyn (1994), Swan (1994) Bakhtin (1986), Martin (1984), Bhatia (1993; 1999; 2000), Swales (1990), Paltridge (2001), Ramos (2004), Huchinson &Waters (1987) – are the part of the theoretical basis of this study. The part that follows is concerned about analyzing three different genres (encyclopedia entry, biography and abstract) as an attempt to demonstrate what linguistic aspects and choice of vocabulary are relevant for those students to achieve the goal described before.