ESP Quo Vadis?
Teaching languages to students at higher education institutions (HEI) has undergone a major transformation. The contemporary world requires new skills from graduates from different HEI, so the process of change is almost constant. For years teachers have looked for the best solutions in didactics, not only taking into account the required outcomes and students’ expectations, but also international and national documents on education policy.
The presentation will focus on three main points.
In the first part, the presenter will provide some definitions of ESP as well as areas of interest, e.g. EAP, EPP, etc. An analysis of selected key areas in ESP course development will be given. Special attention will be paid to the role of needs analysis in the course design process. Moreover, some ideas on developing the curriculum of ESP courses will be discussed.
The second part will focus on the model of ESP courses in the Centre of Languages and Communication (CLC) at Poznan University of Technology. The presenter will describe the key steps in developing ESP courses for engineers in CLC. The final model of ESP courses with practical examples and teachers’ feedback will be shown. This part of the presentation will consider the importance of specialist discourse in teaching ESP.
Finally, the presenter will discuss some international examples from selected universities, which are members of CercleS, and will report on the present situation in ESP as well as future trends which should be considered.
Key words: ESP, needs analysis, project, students, academic teacher.
