development of ESP in recent years

development of ESP in recent years

Beyond the sentence

ESP beginnings

The concept of special language

The second phase of development shifted attention to the level above the sentence. Register analysis had focussed on sentence grammar, but now attention shifted to understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce meaning.

Took place mainly in the 1960s and early 1970s.Peter Strevens, Jack Ewer, John Swales. The aim of the analysis was to identify the grammatical and lexical features of these registers.

Since its beginnings in the 1960s, ESP has gone through three main phases of development. It is now in its fourth phase, and a fifth phase is beginning to emerge.

A learning-centred approach

Target situation analysis

Skills and strategies

It did not add anything new about ESP. Take the existing knowledge and set it on a more scientific basis.

A truly valid approach to ESP must be based on an understanding of the processes of language learning.

The fourth stage of ESP has seen an attempt to look below the surface and to consider not the language itself but the thinking processes that underlie language use.

By Yesmi Donado

The focus of ESP has influenced ELT to focus on student needs and personalized learning, using authentic materials.

Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). The development of ESP. In English for Specific Purposes (Cambridge Language Teaching Library, pp. 9-15).