ESP Teacher Education Research Articles

ESP Research Directions: Enduring and Emerging Lines of Inquiry

This paper identifies major strands of research interest in the ESP literature. Specifically, the review aims to highlight mainstay topics that have characterised research in this area as well as topics that are emerging in this field, or that have received rather limited research interest to date. Linguistic inquiry has been a major thrust of research endeavor, and this has largely been driven by the needs of ESP teachers for linguistic descriptions of specialist language use to inform the development of pedagogical descriptions of academic, workplace or professional English for use in instruction. The ESP literature is also rich in case studies of teaching that report practices in one setting. The review identifies a number of topics, such as learning ESP, ESP teaching practices across settings and ESP teacher education needs, which have received scant research interest. It is suggested that these are emerging avenues for research.

Salomi Papadima-Sophocleous, Elis Kakoulli Constantinou, Christina Nicole Giannikas (Eds.), ESP Teaching and Teacher Education: Current Theories and practices

As its title indicates, ESP Teaching and Teaching Education: Current Theories and Practices, published in 2019, is a volume which brings together research on ESP teacher education and ESP teaching. Both topics are strongly related as it is argued that ESP teacher training can be supported through exemplary practices. The book is composed of ten chapters in English edited by academics Salomi Papadima-Sophocleous, Ellis Kakoulli Constantinou and Christina Nicole Giannikas of Cyprus University o...

THE USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN ESP: CURRENT PRACTICES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ESP TEACHER EDUCATION

Developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have transformed the way people communicate, interact and also the way they learn. ICT tools are widely used in language teaching and learning, and the benefits have been repeatedly expressed in literature. ESP is yet another area of language education that has been affected by these developments. Despite the fact that there are ESP practitioners who utilise technologies in their teaching, more research is needed in order to identify how widely technology tools are used in ESP, so that action is taken to empower practitioners and provide them with the help they need in order to integrate technology in their practices. This paper reports on the findings of a study conducted among 67 ESP practitioners from Tertiary Education in Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, the data of which were obtained through the use of an electronic questionnaire. The paper aims at examining the profiles of ESP practitioners in Greece and the Republic of Cyprus describing their use of technology (hardware and software) for the preparation and delivery of their courses. Furthermore, it outlines ESP practitioners’ views on the inclusion of a component on the use of technology in ESP teacher education. The paper concludes with suggestions regarding opportunities for professional development on issues related to the integration of ICT tools in ESP teaching and learning.

ESP teacher education needs

Teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) and for specific purposes (ESP) are demanding areas in which to work. Teaching in these areas typically includes a range of tasks, such as investigating learner needs and specialist discourse, developing courses and materials in addition to classroom teaching. Therefore, teachers face a range of tasks which often require additional knowledge and skills. To date, the literature in EAP and ESP has tended to foreground the needs of learners and background the learning and knowledge needs of teachers. This plenary reviews themes in the literature on teacher education in ESP and reports on two research studies that investigated the practices and perspectives of experienced ESP and EAP teachers. Findings from the studies are discussed in relation to teacher education needs in this field.

ESP teacher education at the interface of theory and practice: Introducing a model of mediated corpus-based genre analysis

One of the effects of the growing importance of global English in professional contexts has been the rise of ESP teaching at all levels. Despite the concurrently increasing demand for ESP teachers, pre-service teacher education programmes in Europe have so far largely neglected this important area. In order to address the professional needs of future ESP teachers, a novel and coherent framework for mediating the findings of corpus linguistics and genre analysis has been developed. The advantages of such a model of mediated corpus-based genre analysis lie in its flexibility of application to diverse ESP settings and target groups, so empowering both student teachers and their future pupils to develop autonomous language capabilities. Following this model, student teachers are familiarized with the potential of specialized corpora as a source of information regarding specific genres, such as contracts of sale, sustainability reports or company profiles, and as a tool in materials development. This model of mediated corpus-based genre analysis, which will be presented and discussed in this paper, has been implemented in an innovative teacher education project at the English Department of the University of Vienna. Feedback from both student teachers and future employers underlines the positive effects of such a linguistics-informed approach to teacher education.

Reality-based decision cases in ESP teacher education: Windows on practice

This paper is a rationale and framework for the use of case studies in ESP teacher education. It explores why and how reality-based cases can revitalize teacher education programs that are specifically designed to prepare teachers for the problems they could encounter as ESP practitioners. In particular, the following questions are addressed: (1) Why should ESP teacher educators consider using the case method in their programs? (2) What are reality-based decision cases? (3) What are the attributes of “best” ESP teaching cases? (4) What are the benefits of analyzing ESP teaching cases? (5) What issues might ESP teaching cases highlight? (6) How might cases be used in ESP teacher education programs to promote the skills teachers will need for successful ESP practice? (7) How might ESP teacher educators overcome the difficulties involved in implementing case-based teaching? (8) What is the promise of case-based learning in the preparation of ESP practitioners? Appendices include sources of case materials for teacher education programs.

Ethnography for specific purposes: Teaching and training in parallel

Standard ESP Teacher Education programmes which focus on course design or genre analysis techniques address crucial aspects of ESP, but rarely equip ESL/ELT teachers to interact as ESP practitioners with clients in a business environment. The paper explores one means of addressing this aspect of professional training by drawing on principles of ethnographic enquiry. The analysis identifies the intersecting discourse communities in the ESP enterprise and allows a recasting of ESP Teacher Education as ESP Practitioner Training.