Group 7:

 Lisa Marliana (1710117220020)

 Shelin Yeremia A.B (1710117120019)

English for Specific Purposes A1

Points for Discussion

1. Which of the stages of ESP development has our country experienced? Has it developed in a
completely different way?
2. “Tell me what you need English for and I will tell you the English you need” (Hutchinson &
Waters, 1986:8). How justifiable do you think this claim is for ESP?
3. Give a few more examples of ESP courses on the top branches of the ELT tree.
4. What differences would you expect to find between an EOP (English for Occupational
Purposes) course and an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) course for doctors? In what
ways do you think occupational and academic needs differ?
5. All language teaching should be based on learner needs. Thus in theory there is no difference
between ESP and General English teaching; in practice, however, there is a great deal of
difference. How far would you agree with this statement? What differences, either in theory
or in practice do you think there are?

The answers:

1. For all we know so far, English education in our country has been developed in certain way.
The ESP students need to understand what they are looking for first before proceeding to the
next stage. For example, a student whose job is involved in certain field needs to learn
English that concerns with the job. A cook student has to study English about foods and such
to enhance his or her skill. Thus, this statement falls into the third stage, Target Situation
Analysis.
2. There are quite a number of learners of English who learn English because of specific
reasons. For example, one would need the knowledge of English in order to survive socially
and professionally in an English speaking community. Therefore, the guiding principle
proposed for ESP by Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 8) “Tell me what you need English for
and I will tell you what English you need” is precisely true to its meaning within the ESP
context. We absolutely agree to their saying because we can only give what they (learners)
want by knowing what they want. In this case ESP is based largely on the goals and
requirements that students have because when students have little or no basic knowledge in
English, then teaching it for a specific purpose would be almost impossible. All in all, ESP
can be simply deduced as the use of specific variety of English in a specific context to meet
specific needs of the learner. The guiding principle proposed for ESP by Hutchinson and
 Waters (1987: 8) “Tell me what you need English for and I will tell you what English you
need” is in perfect accord with the above statement along with the history and development
of ESP.
3. There are more ESP courses other than what are mentioned in the ESP tree. Some of them are
English for Laws, English for Influencers (YouTubers, Selebgrams), etc.
4. The first time we see EOP and EAP for doctors, we expect that there are several differences
between those. EOP encourages the medical students to learn professional vocabulary
knowledge and communication skill related to their field, while EAP teaches them the basic
of the English itself. The differences might only take place in the range of the material of
those two branches. EOP indulges more in the aspects in which the medical students need for
their job. For EAP, the students are taught English in an English-medium environment at the
level of higher education.
5. We agree that ESP and General English teaching have differences to some extent. One of
those differences is the learner’s need itself. In the theory, ESP is the approach used for
students who need to learn for their professional jobs, while General English has wider range
in terms of the students and their goals. For the practice, we consider that there is a bit
difference between those two, although very subtle. After all, the essence of English teaching
is to give what a learner needs to acquire English.