ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES: ROLE OF LEARNERS, TEACHERS AND TEACHING METHODOLOGIES

Abstract

This article aims at presenting insights regarding the peculiar role of learners, teachers and teaching methodologies to address to the specific needs of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) programmes. It has been found out that adulthood teaching demands that ESP teaching should not be restricted only to instructional setting but other modes, such as self-access study, project work, cooperative learning etc. should be incorporated in the program. It has also been reported that ESP learners should be actively involved in the process of the choice of the content materials, curriculum development and teaching methodology to ensure maximum commitment and motivation of the program participants. The following five key roles have been identified for ESP practitioners who need to discharge their work as a 1) teacher, 2) course designer and material provider, 3) collaborator, 4) researcher and 5) evaluator. ESP teachers have to bear the extra burden of the content area of the learners as well. Additionally ESP practitioners have a challenging task because they are not in the position of being the 'primary knower' of the carrier content and in most of the cases ESP learners may know more about the content than the teachers. The findings strongly suggest that ESP teaching calls for an extremely professional behavior on part of ESP teachers who need to update their knowledge by remaining constantly in touch with the research in the various fields of ESP. It is suggested that no single teaching methodology can be sufficient to address diverse and peculiar needs of ESP learners and ESP practitioners have to pick and choose from a host of teaching methodologies to run an effective ESP course. It may be summed up that as the learners’ personalities as well as the learning contexts are diverse and specific, there is an unavoidable need to choose matching pedagogical methodologies.