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Reading in ESP: What is specific?
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Sat, 03/21/2009 - 20:22
Dear All
I need your help as ESP practitioners and EFL professionals in planning my workshop for the local teachers on the place of reading in ESP course and its pecularities. I think you will agree with me that there are more questions than answers.
What is specific in reading in ESP?
Is reading in ESP differs from reading for general purposes? If yes, how? What exactly is different?
I will highly appreciate any of your comments.
Sat, 03/28/2009 - 11:56
#2
Business related topics is specific in ESP so that the students understand and talk about the key business and economic concepts.
regards
Samjhana
Sat, 03/28/2009 - 12:53
#3
Hi,
This is an interesting topic that is relevant for EAP as well. I think I might say that the main difference between general reading and EAP/ESP reading is the purpose. General reading is usually for pleasure (literature) or to find out information (news etc), whereas EAP/ESP reading is for developing knowledge and understanding of a subject. Although students or people at work may enjoy what they read, they are usually going to do something with it - as Samjhana says - to talk about concepts or write a report for a lecturer or a manager.
I think this could mean that the skills needed for general reading and EAP/ESP reading are different. What do you think?
Olwyn
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 21:13
#4
Dear Samjhana
Can you share with us how you decide on business related topics in ESP? Are you a businessmen or an EFL/ESP/BE teacher?
As far as I know to identify topics to be learnt through ESP course is a great challenge for any of EFL/ESP teachers, isn't it? Interesting how do you deal with it?
Sat, 03/28/2009 - 13:15
#5
hi Olwyn
Yes I agree with you. General reading is for all good readers who read according to their choice while EAP/ESP are for those who need to use Eng at workplace.
Samjhana
Sat, 03/28/2009 - 14:04
#6
Hi All,
If we compare The Language Department (LD) students and
Economic Department(ED) students (I worked in these two departments, taught
Business English),
the Language Department students have two difficulties: Language and
special words concerning economics( tax,income...),
Economic Department students have only one difficulty :language.
It was easier for me to work with the students of ED
than with the students LD.
LD students read , translated but they sometimes didn't understand what they read ,
if they don't understand the theme what kind of CLT will be here .
ED students read and understand what they read and
we tried to organize CLT: discussion, debates...
in spite of lack of language knowledge.
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 11:45
#7
Dear All
Thanks for your help and contributions. Sorry not to reply at once as I was away to give my workshop at the National Annual IATEFL Ukraine Conference "Innovative Teaching of English and Lifelong Learning Strategies". So, the best wishes to all of your from all the participants. Unfortunately, we failed to be online with you and to use your ideas at the workshop. But if you are interested in the participants' answers, they are: reading in GE is for pleasure and in ESP - for information. We came to the common decision that the reading strategies in GE and ESP are different as they depend greatly on the different purposes of reading. Does it answer your question, Sandra?
I personally share Olwyn's idea that reading in ESP is relevant to EAP as you remember we agreed that EAP is a constituent of any ESP course. That is why we discussed developing active reading skills: what for? and how?
We started from very simple questions: What do we read in EAP/ESP? and What for? The teachers were looking at these questions from different perspectives: teachers' and students'. Then we compared the results of our work with students' answers got from my mini-research in the classroom as in our university we always start Module Reading for Specific Purposes with these questions that helps us to (re)design a course for the specific group of students.
I think it is a good beginning to start thinking of what makes EAP/ESP reading specific.
I agree with Olwyn that EAP/ESP reading is for developing knowledge and understanding of a subject as well as with Fazira who focused on discussions and debates on the information read. Samjhana was also right to mention topics, but we do not read them, we can talk or write on them that is again an answer to What for? question.
But to be able to do all these we read something - What? Here I can give you a prompt:
What text-types? Are they the same while reading for general purposes and entertainment and while reading for all the mentioned above? Any ideas?
Best wishes to ALL :)
Hello Zira
I think that reading ESP is similar to reading for general purposes. Why? because the reader can use the same reading strategies that he/she uses when reading for general purposes. However, an small difference could be that when reading for ESP the students can not guess much vocabulary because some terms are very specific and they, maybe, do not have previous knowledge about them. What do you think about this?