Abstract
The article presents the analysis of most frequent threads in four Internet forums to see what can be learnt about ESP teachers’ interests and understanding of the concept of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The results show that the majority of discussions revolve around the choice of materials for different types of ESP. This might suggest that forum members know very little about oral and written communicative strategies of a given profession and rely on the expertise of course books writers to provide them with such knowledge. Moreover, the analysis shows that forum members do not discuss how to teach individual language skills but how to teach different types of ESP which might indicate that there is a greater difference between teaching the same skills in two branches of ESP than there is between teaching different skills with a single type of ESP. The results also indicate that some users feel that ESP teachers should be interested in more than just linguistics, but there are those who claim that the main difference between ESP and general English lies in vocabulary. This polarity of opinions shows that no established view of ESP may exist. The analysis further suggests that the distinction between ESP and EGP is clearer to those who are more interested in learners’ professional needs. Finally, the choice of topics in the analysed threads indicates that forum members and their visitors are interested not only in ESP, but in subjects which have nothing to do with ESP.
Highlights
The analysis of threads in the forums shows that the majority of discussions revolve around the choice of materials, even though the name of the thread may not indicate that, for different types of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
In the first place forum members ask about existing course books
This gives rise to the question whether the course book defines the methodology, or the methodology influences the selection (Sharma, 2011). This might suggest that forum members know very little about oral and written communicative strategies of a given profession and rely on the expertise books writers to provide them with such knowledge
Summary
Internet forums offer insight into the interactions of this community and the analysis of forum posts and thread views can help answer at least some kinds of practical questions about needs and interests of ESP teachers. They show how teachers teach needs-related English and how they understand the concept of ESP which has been widely debated in academic literature (Smoak, 2003). It is assumed that these threads which were viewed by the largest number of visitors might be the ones which are of the greatest interest to the users of these forums (presumably representing the ESP community). Contrary to previous three forums, this one does not list the number of views for individual threads but only for the whole forum
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