ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSE: MATERIALS

A.     Selecting and Developing ESP Materials

Sysoyev (2000) argues that for many teachers, selection of teaching materials is based on their availability. Furthermore, chosen materials determine the content of the course. Quite often it serves as a justification and explanation of the use of the same syllabus with different students. In student-center approach, the appropriateness of the materials includes student comfort and familiarity with the materials, language level, interest, and relevance.

1.      Authentic materials

The important issue in ESP materials is authenticity. The language in ESP should be as authentic as possible. The used of simplified language for instructional purposes has to be minimized since authentic language can be motivating for students particularly when keyed to a subject they are concerned about.

According to Robinson (1991:54) authentic materials in ELT refers to the use of print, audio, video and practical materials originally produced for a purpose other than the teaching of language.

Ellis and Johnsson (1994:157) also agree that authentic material is a kind of material taken from the real world and not specifically create for the purpose of language teaching.

A number of criteria need to be considered in selecting authentic texts for classroom use according to McGrath (2006,pp.106) are:

a.       Relevance (to syllabus, to learners, needs)

b.      Intrinsic interest of topic/ theme (interest learners)

c.       Cultural appropriateness (religiously, social, political)

d.      Linguistic demands (language proficiency)

e.       Cognitive demands (maturity and knowledge)

f.        Logistical consideration: e.g. length, legibility/ audibility

g.       Quality (as a model for use or as a representative token of a text-type)

h.       Exploitability

There are several reasons why authentic material is highly recommended. First, authentic texts, audio, video, or written (multimedia), will have a number of features that are often lacking in texts and dialogues created for learning English. Second, the material may provide information about real-life situations or events. In this case, it is the content of the material rather than the language which is useful for the teacher or for the learner.

For ESP situation, we must also consider whether the goals that we set are authentic with regard to students’ real-world roles, and whether the goals set are authentic tasks or activities that take place in the learning situation are authentic.

In the relation to material development for ESP, Moore (1977:45) suggests six criteria to be applied in creating materials:

a.       Purpose: Is the purpose clearly defined?

b.      Type: Does the exercise type effectively and economically accomplish the purpose?

c.       Content: Is the ratio of language given and student task economic? Are instructions to students clear?

d.      Interest: Is it interesting?

e.       Authentic: Is it a meaningful task? Is it challenging?

f.        Difficulty: Does it contain distracting difficulties?

2.      Materials for self-access centers

Self-access materials may be established to serve the whole institution or simply be housed in a corner of a classroom. It is like a library in that it is essentially a material.resource, but need to be specially prepared in categories of materials.

a.       Published materials

Published materials can be used in various ways. At the very minimum, there will be books for extensive reading, and perhaps graded reading schemes.

b.      Authentic materials

Authentic materials authentic materials also have a place. Gardner and Miller (1999:102-3) made a list of categories; newspapers, magazines, user manuals; leaflets and brochures; foreign mission information; materials from international companies and airlines; letters, faxes, and e-mails; videos; and songs.

c.       Adapting and supplementing published materials

Published materials which have been adapted and supplemented in some way should also be made available.

d.      Specially-prepared materials

In addition to published and authentic materials, there will always be a need for materials that is more precisely tailored to the needs of students on their own such as practice/ testing activities, learning/ awareness-raising activities, and reflective/ creative activities, or social/ peer matching activities (e.g 8;communication tasks)

B.     Contextualization

Contextualization has been recognized as an important concept in ESP classroom and involves some variables. One of the context variables that should heavily be considered in ESP classroom is what the students have to do. Context refers to circumstances or setting in which a person uses a language. Therefore, the key issues related to this matter are the relationship between the students’ special field of study, interest, the place and the nature of language practice.

Contextualized instruction should gain the attention of the learners and relate the goals to the learners’ needs. Contextualization is to ensure relevancy and interest.

Little John and Hicks (1987:69-91) characterize contextualized language classroom tasks as follows:

a.       Learners should be involved in processing language; that is information gap;

b.      Learners should be able to choose what they want to say;

c.       There should be a purpose for communication;

d.      The task should require learners to deal with language spontaneously;

e.       The task should be motivating, and observing and should exploit the learners’ prior experiences

Phillips (1981:97) suggests four key methodological principles in ESP classroom tasks as:

a.       Reality control, which relates to the manner in which tasks are rendered accessible to the students;

b.      Non-triviality, that is the tasks must be meaningfully generated by the students’ special purposes;

c.       Authenticity, that is the language must be naturally generated by the students’ special purposes;

d.      Tolerance of error, errors which do not impede successful communication must be tolerated.

To apply these principles, Robinson (1991:49-52) believes that role play and stimulation, case study, project work and oral presentation have been effective and efficient in ESP classroom interactions.

1.      Role play and simulation

Role play and simulation essentially involve the learners’ looking on a different role and even identify from their usual one.

2.      Case study

Case studies involve studying the facts of a real-life case, discussing the issues involved and reaching some kind of decision or action plan.

3.      Project work

Project work is particularly appropriate for EAP, since doing a project may be a requirement for a college student.

4.      Oral presentation

Another task type which is common to ESP is the oral presentation and this may be part of the other tasks. Oral presentation does not merely involve discussion, but it can also involve all the language skills: writing and reading the information required for the presentation will be surely performed beforehand.

C.     Check List for Evaluating Published Materials

1.      What kind of learner is the material aimed at?

a.       Job and task to perform at work

b.      Work experience

c.       Language level

d.      Cultural background

e.       Educational background

f.        Age

g.       Learning style

2.      What are the main language objectives?

a.       Skills

b.      Functions

c.       Structures

d.      Vocabulary

3.      What are the main topic areas covered?

a.       Does the material introduce the subject

b.      Does it use the topic area as contextual background?

c.       Is the coverage of topic content high in credibility?

4.      What is the main methodological approach?

a.       Demonstration of language in context through text, tape, or video

b.      Explain grammatical rules

c.       Presentation of functional language

d.      Presentation of vocabulary

e.       Controlled practice of language

f.        Open practice of language

g.       Skill development

5.      What is the role of the material?

a.       To present language

b.      To practice language

c.       To provide a resource for the learner for the learner

d.      To check or test knowledge

6.       Is the material attractive?

a.       Clear layout

b.      Good use of space

c.       Useful, clear pictures and diagrams

d.      Interesting context and tasks

D.     Selection and Exploitation of Authentic Materials

When selecting authentic materials to use, there are three questions to keep in mind (Ellis and Johnson 1994 : 162-71).

1.      Who is it for?

2.      What is the training purpose?

3.      How can the material be exploited?

E.      Developing/ Adapting Materials

Curriculum design in ESP, according to swales (1995), is a three-stage process;

1.      Reaching some understanding of the target situation

2.      Studying the target situation elements

3.      Devising materials and language learning activities with the hope that the elements cited in stage two can be acquired as efficiently as possible, so that the students, can survive and flourish in target situation environment.

 Material development is obviously in stage three of the process which is very essential since this stage will have to facilitate the learners with learning condition, language input, and opportunities to use the language.

To satisfy  the language and learning needs of the students Brinton, Snow and Wesche (1989) offer the following points of guidelines text selection for content-based courses.

1.      Content authentic

a.       How up-to-date is the content material?

b.      Does the material give students an opportunity to practice the more extensive types of reading, writing, and listening typically required in content discipline?

2.      Task authenticity

a.       Are the task required of students appropriate to the discipline/subject matter?

b.      Do they promote critical thinking?

3.      Interest level

a.       Will the subject matter engage the students’ interest

4.      Difficulty level

a.       Are the material appropriate for the proficiency level of the students?

b.      How heavy is the lexical and syntactic load?

c.       Is the length of the text appropriate?

5.      Accessibility

a.       Do the students have necessary background knowledge to engage the text?

b.      Is it culturally accessible?

c.       Is the information load appropriate i.e., not too dense?

d.      Is the text organized according to standard organizational patterns?

e.       Is the style/register appropriate?

6.      Availability

a.       What content-specific, e.g., readings, video/audio taped lectures, and films are available for use in the course?

b.      Are the materials affordable?

7.      Packaging

a.       Is the text visually attractive?

b.      Do layout features, e.g., type face, color, borders. Contribute to students’ comprehension of the content material?

8.      Textual aids

a.       Are textual aids, e.g., glosses, study questions, indices utilized to assist students in their comprehension and retention of the content material?

9.      Supporting materials

a.       Is there a teacher’s guide and/ or answer key available?

b.      Is there a supplementary student workbook?

10.  Flexibility

a.       Does the text lend itself to the integration of skills and information exchange activities?

b.      Does it appeal to a variety of sources, thus exposing students to different types, e.g., narrative, descriptive, analytic?

c.       Are the various media utilized?

Additional Materials for ESP Materials

Additional Material for Part A

Materials mean anything which is used to help to teach language learners. Materials can be in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-ROM, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard or anything which presents or informs about the language being learned (Tomlinson, 1998:xi).

Further, Tomlinson (2001) states that materials mean anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of a language (linguistic, visual, auditory or kinesthetic). These materials can be presented  in print, live performance, on cassettes, CD-ROM, DVD, or in the internet. These materials can be instructional, experiential, elicitative, or exploratory. The material is instructional when it informs the learners about the language. It is experiential when it provides exposure to the language in use, elicitative when it stimulates language use, and exploratory when it seeks discoveries about language use in natural settings.

Materials selection, adaptation, or writing is an important area in ESP teaching, representing a practical result of effective course development and providing  students with materials that will equip them with the knowledge they will need in  their future business life. 

Materials in teaching are very important because they can help the teachers in this case, ESP teachers to deliver the lessons better. Moreover, the students can also be active and progressive when the teachers are creative in choosing the materials.

Authenticity has been pointed to by various authors as a relevant feature in ESP methodology (Safont and Esteve 2004: 261-274) and thus, authentic materials constitute an aspect traditionally emphasized in the ESP literature. The learner-centred approach is essential to ESP teaching, and identified learner’s needs are not fully satisfied by published texts. These authentic materials should be taken from the real world and not primarily created for pedagogical reasons.

 Such materials are particularly important for communicative purposes since they reproduce an immersion environment and provide a realistic context for tasks that relate to learner’s needs. Authentic materials can greatly benefit problem-solving, project-based learning, casebased learning, role-play, and simulation and gaming methodology. Students and teachers can use authentic materials as a means to “link the formal, and to some extent artificial, environment of the classroom with the real world in which we hope our students will eventually be using the language they are learning”

For example, the teachers who teach in tourism can use authentic materials which have relation with the subject like map, ticket and many more. The authentic materials can help the students closed more with the real situation and condition of their course. Authentic materials are important tools for use in ESP classes for, they motivate and immerse learners in specific areas of the target language in which practice is needed.

Additional Materials for part B

According to contextual learning theory, learning occurs only when students (learners) process new information or knowledge in such a way that it makes sense to them in their own frames of reference (their own inner worlds of memory, experience, and response). This approach to learning and teaching assumes that the mind naturally seeks meaning in context—that is, in relation to the person’s current environment—and that it does so by searching for relationships that make sense and appear useful. For the real situation, it is needed by the teachers to teach contextually because the students can get some new information that is important for  them. For example, the teachers who want to teach about machine that they should explain contextually and appropriately then the students can assume the lesson by connecting their experiences.

Building upon this understanding, contextual learning theory focuses on the multiple aspects of any learning environment, whether a classroom, a laboratory, a computer lab, a worksite, or a wheat field. It encourages educators to choose and/or design learning environments that incorporate as many different forms of experience as possible—social, cultural, physical, and psychological—in working toward the desired learning outcomes. 

Additional Materials for part C

Evaluation is a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose. Given a certain need, and in the light of the resources available, which out of the number of possibilities can represent the best solution? Evaluation is, then, concerned with the relative merit. There is no absolute good or bad - only degrees of fitness for the required purpose.

We can divide the evaluation process into four major steps:

1.      Defining criteria

On what bases will you judge materials? Which criteria will be more important?

2.      Subjective analysis

What realization of the criteria do you want in your course?

3.      Objective analysis

How does the material being evaluated realized the criteria?

4.      Matching

How far the material match your need?

Additional Materials for part D

Berado (2006: 63) identifies some factors that should be considered when sourcing and selecting authentic materials for use in the language classroom:

1.      Suitability of content
Will the material be of interest to the learners?
Is it relevant to the learners’ needs?
Does it represent material the learners will come across outside of the classroom?

2.      Exploitability
Can the material be exploited for teaching purposes? 
For what purpose should the material be exploited? 
What skills or strategies can be developed by exploiting the material?

3.      Suitability of Language
Is the material too easy/difficult for the learners? 
Is it structurally too demanding/complex? 
How much new vocabulary/grammar does it contain? Is it relevant?

4.      Presentation 
Does it look authentic? 
Is it visually appealing? 
Will it grab the learners’ attention?

Additional Materials for part E

Learners needs can be identified by the teachers from the target learners from whom they are going to develop the materials. Very often, learners needs have been formulated by the institution where the learners are learning in the form of learning objectives. These learning objectives can be made more specific in the form of syllabus which according to Hutchinson and Waters (1989:80) means a document which says what will (or at least what should) be learnt .

There are at least eight types of syllabus that can be used to analyze learners needs: topic syllabus (the topic should be clear that can give limitation to the syllabus), structural and situational syllabus, functional and notional syllabus, skills syllabus, situational syllabus, functional and taskbased syllabus, discourse and skills syllabus, and skills and strategies syllabus. Any syllabus can be used as far as the syllabus can accommodate the analysis of the learners needs.

References:

Andy Gillett, The Role of Published Materials in an ES/AP Course http://www.garneteducation.com/blog/the-role-of-published-materials-in-an-esap-course/ , 08/11/2014

C.J Brumfit, ESP for University. http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/sites/ec/files/Y299%20ELT-12-screen-ESP.pdf , 08/11/2014

Elaine DeLott Baker, Laura Hope and Kelley Karandjeff, Contextualized Teaching & Learning: A promising Approach for Basic Skills Instruction

http://rpgroup.org/sites/default/files/CTL%20Brief.pdf, 08/11/2014

Gabriela Torregrosa Benavent, Sonsoles Sanchez- Reyes Penamaria, Use of Authentic Materials in The ESP Classroom

http://dspace.uah.es/dspace/bitstream/handle/10017/10109/use_torregrosa_ENCUENTRO_2011.pdf?sequence=1, 08/11/2014

Georgina Ma, Using Authentic Materials in Language Teaching http://rpgroup.org/sites/default/files/CTL%20Brief.pdf, 08/11/2014

Mohammed Mizel Tahir, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Syllabus Design, http://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=45953, 08/11/2014

Tom Hutchinson and Alan Water, English for Specific Purposes: A Learning Center Approach,  Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1987

Y M Harsono, Developing Learning Materials for Specific Purposes, http://www.journal.teflin.org/index.php/teflin/article/viewFile/191/109, 08/11/2014