ESP FOR PROGRAM

DEVELOPMENT
M. Arbain, M.Pd
The Nature of Methodology

When we talk about specific

methodology, we mean all language
aspects from reading complex
articles to making a presentation.
Hutchinson and Waters (1987)
claimed that there is no specific
methodology for ESP.
 The same principles apply with ELT
methodology in general. It can be
arguable whether there is a specific
methodology for ESP. He experienced
is that knowing General English
methodology does not make a teacher
successful in techniques that the
teacher implements in the classroom.
For example:
if the teacher is not familiar with such
specific subject matter as the blast furnace
or power station, he won’t be able to want
to prepare his own material for this matter.
It is not always possible to find what
material you want to use during the course
in the course book. In ESP courses, the
teacher has to put more effort than
General English courses.
Dudley Evans and St John (1998)
claimed that strength of methodology
is the way in which language learning
and subject learning approaches can
be integrated. They proposed two
approaches: case studies and project
work.
 They have stated that case studies
integrate knowledge, skills, theory and
any experience, especially in law,
medicine, engineering and business. The
only issue with case studies is the
knowledge of the ESP teacher in the
subject that he/she teaches. ESP teacher
should work with the subject teacher if
he/she doesn’t have a subject
background.
In project work, unlike case studies,
students find and stimulate the
information. Motivation is higher.
Dudley-Evans and St John points out
that project work starts in the
classroom and moves outside the
classroom.
There are five main stages have
identified of development which
are commonly known as:
Behaviourism, Mentalism,
Cognitive Code, The Affective
Factor, Learning and Acquisition.
 Behaviorism: Learning as habit
formation
Pavlov and Skinner Learning is a
mechanic process of habit formation
and proceeds by means of the
frequent reinforcements of a
stimulus-response sequence. It
provided the theoretical
underpinning of the widely used
Audio lingual Method.
 Mentalism: Thinking as rule-
governed activity
According to Noam Chomsky (1964) as
cited in (Hutchinson and Walter, 1987),
language is not a form of behavior,
rather it is an intricate rule-based
system and a large part of language
acquisition is the learning of this
system. He argues that thinking is
rule-governed.
 Cognitive Code: Learners as
thinking beings
According to the cognitive theory,
learning is a process in which the
learner actively tries to make sense of
data. This theory treats the learners as
thinking beings and puts them firmly
at the center of the learning process,
by stressing that learning will only take
place when the matter to be learnt is
meaningful to the learners.
The Affective Factor: Learners as
emotional beings
People think, but they also have feelings. It is
as if we believed that human beings always
act in logical and sensible manner. The
importance of the emotional factor is easily
seen if we consider the relationship between
the cognitive and affective aspects of the
learners. The cognitive factor presupposes the
affective factors of motivation. The emotional
reaction to the learning experience is the
essential foundation for the initiation of
cognitive process.
 Language and Acquisition

Learning is seen as a conscious

process, while acquisition proceeds
unconsciously. The Acquisition-
Learning distinction is the most
fundamental of all the hypotheses
in Krashen's theory and the most
widely known among linguists and
language practitioners.
Basic Principles of Language
Learning
There are 8 basic principles of
language learning in which will
underpin a learning-centered
research methodology:
o Second language learning is a
developmental process
o Language learning is an active
process
o Language learning is a decision-
making process
o Language learning is not just a
matter of linguistic knowledge
o Language learning is not the
learners’ first experience with
language
o Learning is an emotional
experience
o Language learning is to a large
extent incidental
o Language learning is not
systematic
 1. Second language learning is a
developmental process
Learner uses their existing knowledge
to make the new information
comprehensible. The learner’s existing
state of knowledge is, therefore, a vital
element in the success or failure of
learning, and the good teacher will
consequently try to establish and
exploit what the learner already know.
 2. Language learning is an
active process
It’s not enough for learners to only
have the necessary knowledge to
make things meaningful, but they
must also use that knowledge.
 Teachers have to make a distinction
between two types of activity:
a. Psycho-motor activity, that is, the
observable movement of speech
organ or limbs in accordance with the
signals from the brain.
b. Language processing activity, that is,
the organization of information into a
meaningful network of knowledge.
This kind of activity is internal and
not observable.
This means that ‘activity’ should
not be judged in terms of how
much learners say or write, but in
terms of how much the learners
have to think – to use their
cognitive capacities and
knowledge of the world to make
sense of the flow of new
information.
3. Language learning is a decision-
making process
In the traditional classroom the teacher
made all the decisions to avoid all
possibilities of error. Teacher can’t make
decisions without taking risks and taking
risks makes errors possible or even likely.
But the process of developing and using
a network of knowledge relies upon a
train of learner decisions. Learner must
be decision maker.
4. Language learning is not just a
matter of linguistic knowledge
The most fundamental problem of
second language learning is the
mismatch between the learners’
conceptual/cognitive capacities and the
learner’s linguistic level. The learners’
knowledge of their subject may be of a
very high level, while their linguistic
knowledge is virtually nil. Teaching must
respect both levels of the learners.
5. Language learning is not the learners’
first experience with language
Every second language learner is
already communicatively competent in
one language. They know what
communication is and how it is used.
Learners’ knowledge of communication
should be actively exploited in second
language learning, for example, by
getting students to predict, before
reading or listening.
 6. Learning is an emotional
experience
Teachers should develop the positive
emotions as opposed to the negative
ones, for examples:
• Using pair and group work to build
on existing social relationship
• Giving students time to think and
generally avoiding undue pressure
• Putting less emphasis on the product
and more on the process of getting
an answer
• Valuing attitude as much as aptitude
and ability
• Making ‘interest’, ‘fun’, ‘variety’
primary consideration in materials
and methodology, rather than just
added extras
7. Language learning is to a large
extent incidental
Teachers don’t have to be working with
language problems in order to learn
language. Teachers can learn a language
incidentally, while teachers are actually
thinking about something else. The
important point is that the problems
should oblige the learner to use language
and thereby to fix the language into the
matrix of knowledge in their minds.
 8. Language learning is not
systematic
Teachers learn by systematizing
knowledge, the process itself is
not systematic. Laying out
information in a systematic way
will not guarantee learning.
 Model Lesson

Model lesson is used to show how

the principles of language learning
can be realized in the ESP
classroom. There are three model
lessons that can used in ESP class:
Model lesson 1
Ø Materials of the model

For the materials can be divided

into two worksheets. They are
worksheet 1 and 2. In worksheet
1, teacher has to strip cartoon
with bubbles blanked out and
Worksheet 2 uses bubble texts to
complete the blank bubbles in
Worksheet 1.
Ø Audience of the model
The audience of this model can be
engineering or general technical
students in intermediate level.
 Ø Procedure of the model
There are five procedures in this
model. They are Starter, Analysis,
Prediction, Matching, and Follow Up
activity. In the process of starting,
teacher should build stimulation based
on the material that being taught by
giving problems in the form of cases to
the students.
 Then students come to the analysis
process by answering the probing
questions from the teacher to get as
much information as possible. After
that, the students start to make a
prediction of dialogue will be based on
the facts and their knowledge.
Then students have to match the
blank bubbles with the bubble
texts in worksheet 2 and check
their work with the recording that
had been provided by the teacher.
These procedures can be applied
in many possible ways by doing
follow up.
Model lesson 2
Ø Materials of the model

For the materials can be divided

into four worksheets. They are
worksheet 1, 2, 3, and feedback
worksheet.
 Ø Audience of the model

The audience of this model can be

business or secretarial students in
upper intermediate / advanced
level.
 Ø Procedure of the model
There are four procedures in this model.
They are Gathering information, Sharing
information, Feedback, and Follow up
activity. In the process of gathering
information, teacher should divide the
students into several groups and then
give one of the worksheet 1, 2, or 3 to
each group. Then the students have to
make a note of information.
 In sharing information the teacher should
make a new group that consist of member
in the old group at least one person. So
they can complete each other and share
new information. Then they have to
complete the fill gaps using their notes.
After that, the teacher should give
feedback by comparing other group version
because it can be more than one answer.
These procedures can also be applied in
many possible ways by doing follow up.
Model lesson 3
 Ø Materials of the model

For the materials can be divided

into two worksheets. They are
worksheet 1 and 2. In worksheet
1, the teacher use tape recorder to
play the conversation and in the
worksheet 2 teacher tell the
students to make conversation
dialogue.
 Ø Audience of the model

The audience of this model can be

hotel and tourist students in lower
intermediate.
 Ø Procedure of the model

There are three procedures in this model.

They are Prediction, Reconstruction, and
Practice. In the process of prediction,
teacher should play the recording of the
first line conversation and then give the
students a chance to predict what the
conversation talks about. Then play the
full recording to check student’s
prediction and difficult vocabulary.
 After that, in reconstruction, the
teacher divides the students into pairs
and gives a cut up dialogue to each
pair. Here the students should arrange
the dialogue into a correct one and the
teacher help them by giving
suggestion. After that the teacher
plays the recording to check student’s
answer and students repeat the
recording together.
 The next procedure is practicing.
Here the teacher tells the students
to write a conversation and read it
in front of the class while the rest
students have to make a note of
the important information from the
conversation.
Then the teacher tells all of the
students to make a conversation
based on the information that they
get.
 Analysis

There are a number of simple

techniques that can be applied to
almost any lesson:
(1) Gaps, (2) Variety, (3)
Prediction, (4) Enjoyment, (5) An
integrated methodology, (6)
Coherence, (7) Preparation, (8)
Involvement, (9) Creativity, (10)
Atmosphere
 1. Gaps
Learning demands thinking and gaps create that demand.
There are some types of gap, namely:
Information gaps are the situation where one learner has
information, in the other hand another does not. Here,
communicating and sharing the knowledge is needed.

Media gaps are the situation where the information is

available in one medium and needs to be transferred to
another medium. For example, read: make notes: discussing
using notes: complete gapped text.

Reasoning gaps are the situation where some clues and

pieces of evidence are available, but the answer needs to be
extrapolated.
Memory gaps are the situation where the learners have
received some information at one stage of the lesson, and
then they should use their memories to reconstruct the
information itself.

Jigsaw gaps are the situation where all parts are there,
but they need to be put together to form a complete unit.

Opinion gaps are the situation where one has different

opinion with the other, for example about “What is
important?”, “What is not?”, “What is relevant?” and so on.

Certainty gaps are what is definitely known? What can be

presupposed? What can be predicted? What is completely
unavailable? And so on.
 2. Variety
In order to get the repetition necessary to
help learning, there must be variety to keep
the mind alert. There are some ways to
achieve variety:
• Variety of medium, such as: text, tape,
picture, speech, etc
• Variety of classroom organization, such as:
whole class, pair, individual, group, etc
• Variety of learner roles, such as: presenter,
evaluator, receiver, thinker, negotiator, etc
• Variety of exercise: activity or task
• Variety of skills, such as: reading,
listening, speaking, writing,
graphic skills, etc
• Variety of topic
• Variety of focus, such as: accuracy,
fluency, discourse, structure,
pronunciation, etc
 3. Prediction

Prediction is a matter of using an

existing knowledge of a pattern or
system in order to anticipate what
is likely in a novel situation. It is
central both to language use and
language learning.
 The advantages in getting
students to predict are:
a. Build learner confidence by making them aware
of their potential knowledge about language
b. Enable the teacher to discover the gaps in
knowledge, so that teaching can be made more
relevant to needs
c. Active learner’s mind and prepare it for learning
d. Give students an ego investment to get
students to predict so it will give a stronger
motivation to proceed to the next step of the
lesson.
 4. Enjoyment.
It is the simplest way of engaging
learner’s mind. It doesn’t matter
how relevant a lesson may appear.
If it is boring for learners, it is a
bad lesson.
5. An integrated methodology

By using a range of skills, it can

greatly increase the range of
activities possible in the
classroom. This makes it easier to
achieve a high degree of recycling
and reinforcement, while
maintaining the learner’s interest.
 6. Coherence

Each stage of the lesson should

build on previous stages and lead
naturally into the following stages.
 7. Preparation

Prepare the learners to learn as

well as prepare the teacher to
teach.
 8. Involvement
Learners need to be involved both cognitively
and emotionally in the lesson. One of the
simplest ways is by asking questions. Do not
tell learners thing they know already. There
are two words of warning:
a. Do not ask question that is difficult to be
answered, such as defining questions like
“What is an experiment?”
b. Wait for the answers. Learners should feel
that their contribution is valuable.
 9. Creativity

Activities should allow for different

possible answers as well as
different levels of response.
Different does not mean wrong
(Stevick, 1982)
 10. Atmosphere

The cultivation of a cooperative

social climate within the classroom
is very important, such as the
relationship between teacher and
students.