Developing an English for Specific Purposes Voice-Over Course for a Blind Learner

This study was conducted to determine how to motivate technical college students to learn English for specific purposes (ESP) courses through corpus building and enhance their language proficiency during the coursework for their majors. This study explores corpus building skills, how to simplify ESP courses by corpus building for English as second language learners, and ESP course evaluations. Although ESP programs have been implemented in technical colleges in Taiwan for several years, many students and educational practitioners feel frustrated regarding the academic achievement of learners’ ESP courses. Corpus building is crucial for implementing an ESP program and its subsequent success. Designing appropriate teaching materials enables learners to overcome their fears when taking ESP courses. Numerous linguistic professionals have mentioned that ESP courses are aimed at advanced learners. However, the vocabulary size of most technical college students is below 2000 words in Taiwan. Teaching an ESP course at a technical university is challenging work for ESP teachers. Constructing an ESP corpus and selecting appropriate ESP vocabulary to meet learner needs is essential. Building a localized corpus and designing appropriate ESP materials based on student language proficiency is the future trend for ESP courses. In this study, we discuss basic rules for developing linguistics corpora, how to build localized corpora, and the most commonly used tutorials for corpus building.

English has the status of a global language and nowadays, it is “a must tool“. In order to be successful in any field of study you need to know the language that is spoken or known worldwide. Therefore, English should be included in any fields of study or disciplines. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Courses have been offered at the public universities in Kosovo as an elective or compulsory course at many departments, at least for two semesters. Teaching English courses in higher education should be designed based on students’ needs by analyzing their level of English and study disciplines, concretely, English for specific purposes courses. Even though, ESP looks as an “easy peasy” issue, in this study has been involved the challenges that ESP teachers and students come across during the complexity of teaching and learning process. In general, this paper also presents an overview of the current situation of ESP courses profile at three public universities in Kosovo. The study has been carried out using three different evaluative research instruments, concretely, has been included a quantitative questionnaire with students and ESP teachers, a qualitative questionnaire (interview) with ten ESP teachers, currently teaching English specific courses at the three universities and also a class observation at three main public universities in Kosovo (Prishtina, Peja and Prizren). Based on the findings, the course content affects directly beliefs, motivation and interests of the students. Hence, ESP courses should be designed based on students’ specific language and professional needs in each discipline, while studying at Higher Educational Institutions.

In English for Specific Purposes (ESP), an area which focuses on learners’ acquisition of language used to carry out tasks in specific contexts, digital mediation proves invaluable, since, among other things, it allows learners’ exposure to subject-specific terminology and genre. Netflix, a subscription-based streaming service that allows members to watch TV shows, movies and documentaries on internet-connected devices, has been gaining popularity among young audiences. Even though the use of videos in the ESP teaching and learning process is not new, research that describes the experience of using Netflix in ESP is limited. This paper presents an action research study, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the context of an English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) course for first year students of Commerce, Finance and Shipping at the Cyprus University of Technology. The purpose of the study was to find a way in which students would be exposed to more authentic-like language related to their field of study and to increase motivation, amidst social distancing and online instruction; for this purpose, the course facilitator utilised Netflix. The participants in the study were 42 first year students of the Department of Commerce, Finance and Shipping. Data were collected through a mixed methods approach, an online questionnaire and student reflections. The results of the study showed students’ overall satisfaction with the integration of Netflix in the learning process. Despite certain challenges they faced, students noted that generally the experience was beneficial in terms of language skills improvement as well as professional skills development, among others.KeywordsDigital mediaNetflixESP

It is believed that the time that the undergraduate students register in Teacher Education Program they have an extensive amount of experience, but English for specific purpose (ESP) teachersor pre-service ESP teachers are regarded as valuable resources for recognizing attitudes or perceptions of effectiveness of ESP teachers whose classless are taught by them. Pre-service teachers surely have several specific perceptions about their future career and the effectiveness of ESP teachers whose classes are being taught by them during practice teaching. If ESP teachers are asked the question why do you want to be anESP teacher? They may have different responses such as: I want to be an ESP teacher because I have a very good image of my teachers during my school period or I want to be a ESP teacher because I would like to follow the methods and procedures of effective teaching that my university teachers did during teaching specific courses. However, some might have an opposite perception. Anyway, this study tries to compare the perceptions of ESP teachers before (pre-service) and after (in-service) teaching period.

This study focuses on examining four Indonesian English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teachers’ experiences regarding their identity construction and negotiation in a language institute. Given the concern on an analytic framework by an adapted model of TESOL teacher identity, the teachers’ experiences were explored through life-history interview. The results revealed a complex process of transforming professional practices and constructing identities in relation to the struggles of becoming ESP teachers. The participants constructed ESP teacher identities through acquiring subject knowledge via professional development activities and building a sense of intrinsic fulfillment in becoming ESP teachers. However, the participants found challenge to cope with the students’ demands of learning ESP. Furthermore, a need to equip the ESP teachers with ESP skills in various subject knowledge areas became the participants’ concern in order to meet the students’ expectancy as well as to enhance their professional development.

This study aims to identify novice English for specific purposes (ESP) teachers’ professional development needs with regard to academic practice, ESP students, curriculum development and program implementation. The research was implemented at a foreign languages department of a foundation university. Research sample was composed of 12 non-native English instructors teaching ESP courses to undergraduate students. A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was utilized in the study. Findings revealed that the teachers did not know how to cooperate with the faculty and promote students’ higher order thinking skills in ESP courses. The results indicated a scarcity of textbooks and materials on ESP teaching besides a need for support during pre and in-service teacher education on how to teach ESP. It was also found the teachers felt insecure when working individually so they sought more collaboration with faculty members and other ESP teachers.

English for specific purposes (ESP) practitioners who are content experts experience different types of critical incident (CI). Although CIs can influence the success or failure of ESP courses and impact on ESP practitioners’ professional lives significantly, they have received only scanty attention in the ESP literature. This study investigates language-related CIs experienced by ESP instructors who are content experts. Twenty-seven CIs were identified via narrative frames (n = 17) and interviews with Iranian ESP instructors (n = 10). Of them, the ten language-related CIs were analyzed in terms of their nature, the strategies and tactics that the ESP practitioners utilized to tackle them, and the lessons that they learned from them. The language-related CIs centered on pronunciation difficulty, weak grammar, insufficient skills in teaching reading and writing, low competence in language testing, and unfamiliarity with research on academic genres. In their response to the CIs, the ESP instructors deployed three types of coping strategy: admitting ignorance, avoidance, and risk-taking. They utilized different tactics to manage their CIs and reported different lessons learned. These findings have important implications for ESP teachers’ professional development and ESP teacher education.

Assessing learners has constantly played a considerable role in teaching and learning process.This significance is obviously observed in teaching foreign languages in general and teaching English for specific purposes (ESP) in particular.Since in the global community, English language is considered as the major medium in techno-scientific communications and interactions, the demand for academic considerations for teaching and developing ESP as a central interdisciplinary course is increasingly growing.This growing tendency has created opportunities for designing and developing various technical and special course materials around the globe.In Iran, as well as the other countries, this movement has been with the main objective of promoting the quality of teaching reading comprehension skills along with translation techniques into the native language and developing relevant technical terminologies in every major.However, still a sort of inconsistency among teaching ESP, publishing ESP materials, and developing final exam ESP tests exists.This inconsistency emerged as the role of ELT specialists in each of the above mentioned activities disqualified the educational values of teaching and learning ESP.Although the administrators and authorities have allocated great amount of budget to designing, developing and holding courses, as well as ESP instructors' payments, still the quality and the efficiency is not as high as expected.Thus, considering the existing gap, the researchers in the present study have attempted to critically study and analyze the final exam tests of ESP for students of accounting in Islamic Azad University, Shahr-e-Rey branch, in Tehran in order to highlight the current problems and propose practical solutions in this regard.

This study examines teachers’ perceptions of integrating tourism marketing concepts into English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction at SMKN 1 Gerung, a vocational high school that offers a Tourism Destination major. As the tourism industry increasingly demands graduates with strong English proficiency and marketing communication skills, ESP programs are expected to provide learning experiences that reflect real professional practices. Teachers’ perceptions are crucial in this process because their beliefs, pedagogical knowledge, and instructional decisions directly influence the implementation and success of curriculum integration. Adopting a qualitative descriptive design, data were collected from 8 ESP teachers through semi-structured interviews, supported by document analysis and classroom observations to ensure methodological triangulation. Qualitative analysis revealed that teachers generally hold positive views toward integrating tourism marketing, as they believe it can improve students’ language proficiency, increase their motivation, and strengthen their ability to communicate effectively in workplace-related contexts. However, several challenges were identified, including limited availability of authentic and up-to-date teaching materials, insufficient professional development in tourism marketing, and weak collaboration between the school and tourism industry stakeholders. These challenges hinder teachers’ ability to design industry-relevant ESP lessons. The study highlights the need for curriculum updates, the development of authentic tourism marketing resources, and structured professional development programs. Overall, the findings offer important insights into improving curriculum design, teacher professional development and school-industry collaboration to enhance the quality, relevance, and industry alignment of ESP instruction in tourism-focused vocational education settings.

The use of the monolingual method in the teaching and learning process has drawn a lot of criticism from education professionals as well as language learners, in line with the growing use of translanguaging in language learning. Translanguaging allows users to use their linguistic resources as a new paradigm for utilising more than one language when learning a foreign language. The current study examined how English for Specific Purpose (ESP) teachers and students utilised and interpreted translanguaging in healthcare learning contexts. This study used a mixed research method using the instruments of observation, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires, involving 150 nursing students and 5 ESP lecturers as the study participants. The study revealed that nursing students generally have a positive attitude towards translanguaging practice in ESP classes. The five ESP teachers are aware of the efficacy of translanguaging for content instruction to improve comprehension, foster solidarity in the classroom, and produce better learning outcomes, especially for those with lower ESP language proficiency. Most teachers also call for the continuation of the translanguaging philosophy and practice by supporting language policies that relate to its use in ESP learning. This paper also confers the insinuations of the study's findings concerning the requirement for contextualised translanguaging implementation and system construction. It is advised that the use of translanguaging by multilingual learners in ESP learning should be seen by instructors and students from a wider viewpoint.

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has flourished to meet the growing demand of the academic and professional learners. Since the tertiary level of education is the concern, ESP can be a way out to teach English as a second or foreign language. At the end of primary, secondary and higher-secondary level of English language education, a learner is expected to have a good command of the four skills of English language. Even though, if one fails to have the proficiency, s/he needs intensive teaching. ESP has very thoughtful and research-oriented arrangement for language teaching by needs analysis, formulation of goals and objectives, specific syllabus design, appropriate material development, effective teaching, and accurate evaluation.
 In ESP, the practitioner, who is a needs analyst, is also a setter of goals and objectives, a syllabus designer, a material developer and a teacher as well as an evaluator. For this reason, there lies no gap among the steps of a whole project of language teaching. ESP learners are mature and more enthusiastic. In ESP, syllabus design depends on the analysis of the language used in the target area of learners. Sometimes, the syllabus designers consider the learners’ opinions. Teaching materials are collected from the area of job or study of the learners. Interests, target and levels of previous knowledge of the ESP learners usually vary. Thus, for an individual group, a tailor-made ESP course is, therefore, suitable. The goal of the present action research is to design an English language course for the medical students.
 In my professional life, I used to teach English language to the medical students. Since I taught them with general English language materials, I observed a gap between their target area and English language. “They cannot relate their achieved language knowledge to the medical context. For example, in a class, when they are asked to solve some exercises of active and passive voices, they can solve properly. But when they define terms like hypertension, or nervous system, they confidently use called/ call/ calls instead of is/ are called. Medical students are really motivated by their subject specific texts. It is my assumption that, specific English language course can solve the problem by bridging the gap between their knowledge and their proficiency language.” (Sharmin, L. -2011). On the basis of the information of data, collected from one preset questionnaire, I have analyzed needs and formulated an ESP course obtaining vocabulary, topic and examples from medical context. I found the classes more effective and interesting with these special materials. I have collected another set of data. I compared the data and found the results very optimistic.

The present study is an attempt to understand English for Specific Purposes (ESP) by encompassing various linguists’ efforts to define it, tracing its historical growth and trying to apply as a medium of communication in your own field. Though lots of contradicting views have been reported in defining this extremely significant branch of ELT, yet, most of the hypothesis are accepted in broadening its horizon and tag it to its specific application. Again, there seems to be certain dichotomies regarding its confinement to basic teaching of English to the beginners. Actually ESP hyperlinks to all kinds of official communication be it professional, academic or scientific. Thus, there is no specific discipline that is primary in ESP but the specific goal of specific learners which is of interest or in demand. The same has been reinforced by the discussion related to its absolute and variable characteristics. Historical growth of ESP has also been traced and it has been reported that though it is considered to be a modern approach yet its textbook exist way back in the sixteenth century. Professional ESP courses train the learners and enable them to function as per the demand of the target situation. Thus an ESP programme should be aim-directed, learner-directed and situation-directed. Ideally an ESP course should have the following three features a) Authentic study material, b) Purpose-related orientation and c) Induced self-direction through proper guidance. Frontline research whether experimental or theoretical has its own demand of acceptance and recognition in the scientific community but does any author gets panic stricken about the media of communication? Even if fractional percentage does exist then there are a lot of professional help and way out to battle out the situation. Science and English are mutually exclusive and is the real life example of synergic bonding.

An increasing number of private and public organizations and educational institutions are incorporating Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) technology into either their traditional classroom setting, or online English for Specific Purposes (ESP) training programs. In the role of facilitating students' learning, it is important for all stakeholders of ESP training programs to investigate the effectiveness of implementing online learning CALL systems into the distance learning environment and the traditional classroom environment of the programs. In order to determine the “effectiveness” of a corporate ESP training program, the approach for this study was to evaluate trainees' pretest and posttest scores related to the ESP training program. The experimental group of this one group pretest and posttest design study was a group of 18 Chinese adult male trainees enrolled in a flight academy's Aviation English training program that implemented with online learning CALL technology blended with an instructor, in central Florida. The intervention of the study was the implementation of online learning CALL technology blended with an instructor in the classroom environment. The length of the intervention was eight weeks of Aviation English training that implemented blended learning instructions. In addition, a survey instrument was developed to collect data on students' basic information, attitudes toward learning English with CALL technology, motivations for study English, and their perceptions of CALL technology as facilitating interactions among students. The surveys were completed by the students before and after two months of intervention. The study found that within two months of the implementation of the blended learning in the Aviation English training program, participants had significant improvement on their test scores. Participants in the study generally had positive attitudes toward learning English with CALL, before and after two months of the Aviation English training program. They also had positive perceptions of CALL technology in facilitating interactions in the classroom, before and after the training program. The study also found that participants who had positive perceptions of CALL in facilitating interactions in the classroom tended to have positive attitudes toward using CALL in learning English.

Despite the developments in the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) field, the field of ESP Teacher Education (TE) remains neglected. Research in the area of ESP TE has not been given much attention, and the opportunities ESP practitioners have for Professional Development (PD) are very limited. This chapter describes the development of a curriculum for an online ESP TE course, the ReTEESP Online. The process occurred in the context of a Technical Action Research (TAR) study, the purpose of which was to address the needs of a group of 24 language instructors in terms of ESP TE. The course was based on a literature review in ESP and ESP TE, including learning theories and TE models, and recent developments in curriculum design. The course was also informed by an analysis of the 24 language instructors’ needs in ESP TE and a pilot implementation of the course.

This descriptive study explores the English language lecturers' readiness and training needs towards the teaching of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses in Malaysian Premier Polytechnics. Data were collected from 62 lecturers through questionnaires which were then analysed to obtain the value of frequency and percentage score. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six lecturers for cross-validation purposes and the data were qualitatively analysed with initial descriptive codes assigned to the lecturers' responses. This study reveals that the lecturers are still unprepared to teach ESP courses and need training to teach these them. It aims to provide English language lecturers with the information they need for self-reflection and to equip themselves with skills required for the teaching of ESP. At the same time, it is hoped that the study would highlight the immediate need for professional development and in-service training needs to the relevant authorities in order to enhance the readiness and skills of these lecturers to teach ESP.