The role of the ESP teacher

Abstract

Give us the tools and we will finish the job. (Winston Churchill) Our explorations of the land of ESP are almost complete, and we come in this final section to consider the role of the ESP teacher, in particular, to consider in what ways the ESP teacher's lot differs from that of the General English teacher. We have stressed a number of times the need to see ESP within the context of language teaching in general and this applies as much to the role of the teacher as to materials and methodology. Nevertheless, there are important practical ways in which the work of the General English teacher and the ESP teacher differ. We shall conclude our journey by considering two of the most important differences, the one briefly and the other at greater length. Firstly it will be clear from the preceding chapters that the ESP teacher's role is one of many parts. Indeed Swales (1985) prefers with some justification to use the term ‘ESP practitioner’ rather than ‘ESP teacher’ in order to reflect this scope. It is likely that in addition to the normal functions of a classroom teacher, the ESP teacher will have to deal with needs analysis, syllabus design, materials writing or adaptation and evaluation. We do not intend to go into this aspect in any further detail: the whole book is a testimony to the range of parts the ESP teacher is called upon to play. The second way in which ESP teaching differs from General English teaching is that the great majority of ESP teachers have not been trained as such.