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SPECIFICITY AND ESP COURSE DESIGN

Helen Basturkmen
University of Auckland, New Zealand
h.basturkmen@auckland.ac.nz

ABSTRACT

English for specific purposes (ESP) courses are often discussed in terms of
a two-way distinction between ’wide-angled’ and ’narrow-angled’ designs.
The term ’wide angled’ is used to refer to courses for learners targeting a
broad work place, professional or academic field. The term ’narrow angled’
is used to refer to courses for learners targeting one particular work place,
professional or academic environment. Often wide-angled course designs
are based on the premise that there is a set of ’generic’ skills and linguistic
features that are transferable across different disciplines and professional
groups. Proponents of narrow-angled designs argue against this premise
(Hyland 2002). This paper illustrates a number of narrow- and wide-angled
course designs in ESP and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of
the options.

Introduction
Two influential definitions of English for Specific Purposes (Strevens 1988;
Dudley-Evans and St John 1998) identify ’absolute’ and ’variable’ char-
acteristics of ESP. The absolute characteristics of ESP courses are listed
by Strevens as (1) designed to meet the specified needs of the learner;
(2) related in content such as themes and topics to particular disciplines,
occupations and activities and (3) centred on language use in those activi-
ties (Strevens 1988). Dudley-Evans and St John list them as (1) designed to
meet the specific needs of the learner; (2) making use of the underlying
methodology and activities of the disciplines they serve; and (3) centred on
the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genres of
activities in those disciplines (Dudley-Evans and St John 1998).
 49

There is a good deal of similarity between the two definitions above

even though produced ten years apart. The similarity is twofold: ESP
courses are devised on the basis of the specific work-related or academic
needs of the learners and the courses offer descriptions of language use in
the disciplines or occupations they serve.
The centrality of needs analysis is reflected in numerous studies reported
in the ESP literature. For example, Bosher and Smalkoski (2002) describe
a study to determine why ESL students enrolled on a nursing degree

programme in a US college were not succeeding academically. Crosling

and Ward (2001) describe a study to identify the oral communication
demands that business graduates at an Australian university meet on
entering the work place.
The centrality of language description is reflected in research interests in
ESP to identify features of language use in various disciplines and occu-
pations. In the 1980’s a study by Tarone et al. {1981) sought to identify
the incidence and specific functions of the passive in research writing in
astrophysics. More recent examples are the study by Lindemann and
Mauranen (2001) to identify the occurrence and functions of the word
’just’ in a corpus of spoken medical discourse, and the study by Ferguson
(2001) to examine the use of if-conditionals in both written and spoken
medical discourse.
Although there is general agreement about the centrality of learners’
needs and description of language use in disciplines and occupations in
ESP, there are differences in how these terms are understood. ESP can be
understood as concerned with groups of learners with either almost
identical needs or only somewhat similar needs. ESP can be understood
as concerned with disciplines or occupations either as broad fields or as

specialities within fields. For example, management can be understood

as a general field or as a composite of a number of specialities (such ass

strategic management, management accountancy, public administration,

business administration).
Differences in understandings are reflected in different types of ESP
course designs. Some courses are designed for a group of learners with
almost homogenous needs targeting one particular discipline or occupation
(narrow-angled) and some are designed for a group of learners with some-
what similar needs and interests targeting a broad field (wide-angled).
Some courses are not focused on needs but on a language variety-the
features of language use in broad area, such as business or science (wide-
angled).
50

In recent years there has been a growing tendency toward wide-angled

course designs in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) (Hyland 2002).

Hyland (2002) perceives this tendency negatively and attributes it largely

to the reluctance of universities to fund the development of highly specific,
that is, narrow-angled EAP programs. Ferris (2001 ) reports that in the US
the majority of EAP writing classes are based on the generalized skills and
process approach. Ferris attributes this to practical concerns (the lack of
funds to offer a range of specialized writing courses for the different disci-
plines and the lack of teacher education about how to research commu-
nications in different disciplines).
I will argue that there in fact three different types of ESP course
are

design rather than two as suggested by the narrow- vs wide-angled dichot-

omy : one narrow-angled option and two wide-angled options (courses that
focus on common needs and those that focus on a language variety).

Table 1. Types of course design in ESP

The following section of this paper describes and illustrates the three
options shown in Table 1. Section Three discusses them in relation to the
concept of specificity and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of
each.

Three Types of ESP Course Design

Type 1: Point of Departure Analysis ofNeeds in a Particular Target Group
A number of ESP courses are set up to address the needs of a group of
learners who wish to enter or make progress in a particular target group.
 51

To illustrate this version of ESP I will first refer to the description of a

course developed to teach English to pilots and navigators in Turkey that
is described by its developers, Sullivan and Girginer (2002). Sullivan and
Girginer set out to familiarize themselves with the needs of the students
and the language used by pilots and air traffic controllers in the work
place. This led them to collect and transcribe recordings of transactions
between pilots and air traffic controllers working at a nearby international
airport and to interview and give questionnaires to a number of pilots and
air traffic controllers already on the job.
The writers found out important information about the work of pilots
and air traffic controllers and language use in these occupations. For exam-
ple, it was discovered that there were in fact four distinct areas of work in
air traffic control: area control (working with planes at the highest alti-
tudes), approach control (working with planes beginning their descent),
tower control (working with planes at heights lower than 3,000 feet) and
ground control (working with planes that have actually landed). Air traffic
controllers worked in any one of these. four areas. Analysis of the
transcripts showed that nearly all the transactions occurred between the air
traffic controllers and pilots and that few occurred between pilots
themselves. They discovered that most transactions were brief and centred
on a limited number of language functions. The commonest function was

making requests. The interviews brought to light perceptions of problems

that the Turkish pilots and air traffic controllers had in using English in
their work. One problem was that of understanding colloquial expressions
such as ’chop’ used by American pilots for turbulence. The pilots and air
traffic controllers also reported a perceived need to improve their
conversational English because they often faced work place situations
requiring them to communicate on subjects other than technical matters.
Following their investigation, the writers drew up a list of content for
the English for Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers course. The list involved
the following items: making requests; being able to pronounce and com-
prehend numbers; being able to listen to multiple interactions and discern
who is speaking to whom; being able to take turns and break into ongoing
exchanges; being able to understand colloquial words and phrases used in
air traffic control; and taking part in conversational exchanges.
The above example illustrates a narrow-angled course targeting work
place needs. Narrow-angled designs are also evident in EAP. A course
designed to focus on the specific needs of a group of law students in a
university in Hong Kong is reported in Bruce (2002). Law is taught to the
52

Chinese students through the medium of English at this university. Bruce

and other colleagues in the EAP unit at the university developed an
adjunct EAP course targeting the needs of students in one particular law
course, Tort. The course offered two hours of instruction each week to stu-
dents in their first year of legal studies and involved the use of discipline-
based materials and genres. It focused in part on two legal genres-
the case report (verbatim reports of the judgments of court cases) and the
statute (Acts of Parliament, legislation). However, the main part of the
course focused on an academic legal genre-the Legal Problem Question
Answer (PQA).
The PQA is an essay type particular to law studies. Students are
presented with a body of facts and asked to predict and write about the
likely legal response. The EAP teachers identified and taught patterns of
argument and reasoning and the rhetorical structures used in the PQA. For
example, the EAP teachers highlighted ways of structuring PQAs and
language expressions that are typically used for various functions in them,
such as ways to express provisos (providing X can show...and unless X
can show ... ).
Both of the courses described above focus on addressing the language
needs of students who wish to enter and make progress in one particular
target environment. The first was an example of narrow-angled occupa-
tional ESP and the second of narrow-angled EAP.

Type 2: Point of Departure Analysis of Needs Across Target Groups

Like Type 1 courses, Type 2 courses also focus on learner needs. How-
ever, Type 2 courses attempt to address the common needs of learners who
are heading for different but related disciplines or occupations.
A distinction has been drawn between English for General Academic
Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP)
(Blue 1993). Type 2 courses are EGAP designs. They address core aca-
demic skills (e.g. listening and note-taking, reference skills, participating
in seminars and discussions, formal academic writing style) shared by
different disciplines. They differ from narrow-angled ESAP courses that
are concerned with the language (structures, vocabulary, academic con-
ventions and genres) and particular communicative needs of a particular
discipline, such as law or economics (Jordan 1997).
The Type 2 option can be illustrated with reference to the course
focused on the development of general academic speaking skills described
in Basturkmen (2002). The course was set up in response to findings from
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a university-wide needs analysis (Richards and Gravatt 1998) revealing

student concern with their ability to participate in seminars and discus-
sions in a university setting. Classes on the academic speaking course are
composed of students from a range of subject areas, such as computer
science, psychology, education, law, statistics, Asian languages and infor-
mation technology. The course aims to help the learners develop skills to
participate in talks and discussions for academic study. The syllabus is
organized around three tasks perceived to be common enough to be rele-
vant to student’s from all subject areas: a short talk defining a term from
the student’s own subject area; an oral report of a survey study and an oral
review of a report of an innovation.
Course content focuses on speaking skills and processes (e.g. preparing
and organizing a presentation). Generic models of spoken genres are pre-
sented. For example, a generic model of a short talk is presented. Learners
use this and are required to then give short talks defining a term from their

own fields of study. For example, students in one class gave talks on fol-

lowing topics: Zone of Proximal Development, Bubble Economy and Data

Compression (students of education, commerce and computer science
respectively).
Occupational ESP courses can also focus on general needs. Mason
(1994) describes an English for Health Care Professionals course in Fin-
land catering for a mixed group of nurses, health care administrators and
health care educators.

Type 3: Point of Departure-A Linguistic Variety

Type 3 courses focus on the language of a broad field, such as business or
science. The language associated with a field is termed a variety. The
primary concern of Type 1 and 2 courses is the assessment of the needs of
the learners and predicting when, where and for what purposes they will
use English. This concern is secondary in Type 3 designs. In Type 3

designs, the primary concern is to illustrate the features of the language

variety itself.
Type 1 and 2 courses are designed for more or less specific groups of
learners. Type 3 courses are designed around the features of language in
the variety and because of this may cater for quite a diverse group of
learners. For example, a Business English course may cater for a mixed
group---those already involved in business and those hoping to work in
business in the future, those working in areas such as administration as
well as those working in marketing and finance.
54

The Type 3 option can be illustrated with reference to a published

course book Market Leader: Upper Intermediate Business English (Cot-
ton, Falvey and Kent 2001). The course book is organized into a number
of units each dealing with a different topic (e.g. International Marketing,
E-commerce, Management Styles, Takeovers and Mergers and Risk).
To illustrate, I describe the content of the unit on Risk. First of all, some
discussion cues are given to get students talking about types of everyday
risks and risk in business. This is followed by a listening text (an expert in
risk management describes types of business risks). Next there is a
vocabulary section-words concerned with risk (e.g. ’volatile’, ’fraud’,
’unprecedented’) and a reading about the risks globalization poses. A
grammar section follows which focuses on the rules for forming ’intensi-
fiers’ (adverbs to intensify the meaning of adjectives, e.g., ’increasingly
volatile’, ’fully prepared’).
Finally there is a case study activity. This centres on a clothing
manufacturer whose core products of jeans and trainers are losing market
appeal and whose profits are in decline. The company approaches a firm of
management consultants for advice. The learners are given descriptions of
a number of strategies for recovery produced by the firm of consultants.
For example, one strategy is for the manufacturer to buy out another com-
pany that is successfully manufacturing uniforms. Another strategy is to
invest in research and development into materials technology. Technolo-
gies such as ‘crushproof’ materials could give the company a cutting edge
image and offset the recent loss of market appeal it has experienced. The
task for the students is to read and discuss the strategies for recovery and
assess the types of risk they pose. The students write a letter to the clothing
manufacturer making recommendations for the two best strategies.

Assessing the Options

This section outlines some of the advantages and disadvantages of the
three types of course design.

Type 1
The first, that is tailoring the course to the specific needs of a group of
learners in relation to a very specific target group offers course content
that fits the exact needs of the students and prepares them well to meet the
demands of the target situation. This option can be supported theoretically
with reference to social constructive views of language and psychological
perspectives of learning.
 55

Social constructive theories of language are based on the premise that

disciplines and professions are constructed and reproduced through
discursive practices. Language is construed not as a general code but as
forms of situated action. Hyland describes social construction as premised
on the idea that the ways people think and the categories and concepts they
use to make sense of the world are language constructs created by
different communities:
Language is not just a means for self expression...it is how we construct
and sustain reality, and we do this as members of communities, using the
language of those communities. The features of a text are therefore influ-
enced by the community for which it was written and so best understood,
and taught, through the specific genres of communities (2002: 41).

From apsychological perspective, the case for highly specific, that is,
narrow-angled course designs can also be argued. Learners will find the
course highly motivating because of the obvious relevance. As motivation
is understood to enhance learning, such courses should lead to greater
learning due to the learners’ perceptions of the significance of the course
content to their needs.
However, students are not always as motivated toward the ’target
situation’ as it may at first seem. Uvin (1996) reports the design of an ESL
course for health care workers in the United States. The course centred on
the language competencies needed in health care work, such as language
for describing a meal tray. However, the learners responded poorly to the
course content even though it had been selected on the basis of their work-
related language needs. Further investigation revealed that the learners
were not keen on the course content precisely because of this. Many of the
workers had ambitions beyond their present health care jobs and wanted to
learn English in order to progress beyond their present positions.
A second problem is that highly specific ESP course designs can present
a restricted version of English, an argument made by Widdowson in the
1980s. Although Widdowson did not use the terms narrow- and wide-
angled, it is clear that his argument was levelled against narrow-angled
ESP. The argument was that ESP teaches surface-level linguistic forms but
not core grammatical structures and vocabulary. This limits students’
ability to use English-they are limited to the precise uses of English that
allow them to operate in restricted circumstances. In presenting a restricted
version of English, ESP engages itself in language training rather than
language education-training because it provides learners with the surface
linguistic forms used in the target situation but not education because it
56

neglects to give students the tools (the generative base) that would enable
them to use language creatively (Widdowson 1983). This criticism seems
to me to be valid for those narrow-angled courses (and this is not all
narrow-angled courses) that limit themselves to an exclusive focus on the
surface of discourse of a discipline or occupation by, for example, limiting
attention to useful phrases for a set of speech acts (e.g. ways to make
requests, expressions for agreeing) or models of writing particular disci-
plinary or professional genres.
A further problem of narrow-angled ESP course designs is related to the
goal of specificity. It is rarely the case that all learners in any class will
actually face the same communicative demands in the target setting. A
group of engineers may later come to work in quite diverse areas, some on
the factory floor, others in an office setting, for example. In the example of
the English for Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers course described above,
the students comprised two distinct groups, future pilots and air traffic
controllers. Although their future communicative needs may be similar in
some respects, in others they may be different. Upon investigation, the
course designers found that air traffic control comprised four distinct

subgroups according to the various stages of ascent and descent of the

planes the controllers deal with. We suspect that the language needs of
those working in one area, for example, area control are in some or per-
haps many ways distinct from those working in another, such as ground
control. Samraj (2002) investigated the writing needs of students on a
postgraduate program in environmental studies in a US university. The
investigation revealed that writing needs varied according to which papers
the students took. In Wildlife Behaviour students were required to produce
a term paper in which they reviewed previous research, competing

hypotheses and suggestions for future research on a topic of their choice.

In Resource Policy the students were required to write one long and two
short memos based on work-place simulations. For example, in one short
memo task students were given case notes of a problem situation and on
the basis of their interpretation of the situation were required to write a
three-page memo to the State governor recommending a course of action.
Thus the former required an academic genre and the latter a work place
genre. On the basis of the findings, Samraj concludes: ’EAP teachers need
to stress that academic writing varies not just along disciplinary lines.
Instead they need to help students understand the multiplicity of the con-
textual layers surrounding the texts produced in content classes or pro-
fessional contexts’ (2002: 174).
 57

However specific we endeavour to make an ESP course (and thus the

content relevant to the learners), it is always a matter of compromise, and
at least some of the content is bound to be more relevant to the commu-
nicative needs of some individuals more than others. If the course content
comprised the generative structures of English (often referred to as the
’common core’) rather than the surface linguistic forms, this would be
acceptable. All generative structures are potentially useful. If, however,
course content comprises largely surface-level linguistic items, such as

expressions for language functions X or Y or models of genres for doing X

or Y, and if the students do not in fact later need to do X or Y, the ESP
course content is of dubious value.

Finally one further difficulty of a practical nature concerns the amount

of research and preparation required for designing highly specific ESP
courses. Often teachers are not given the luxury of many hours of pre-
course preparation time in which to investigate language use in target

groups. They may also find it difficult to get access to the target groups
and those in them may have limited time to discuss the precise uses of
communication or the group’s expectations. Those already working in the
target group may be unaware of those uses of language or have tacit rather
than explicit knowledge of them. When time is available for in-depth
investigation into communication of a specific group, then a great deal can
be learned. Spears (1995) conducted an investigation into the writing
needs of nurses in the United States to identify the genres most important
in their work. The study involved analysis of documents produced by
nurses, journal articles in the field, guides for nurses on writing and inter-
views with over 100 nursing professionals (nurse practitioners, nurse
managers and consultants). The aim was to find out how much time they
spent writing, what they wrote, what they considered to be the characteris-
tics of effective writing in nursing and what problems they experienced in
writing. This was, of course, a time-consuming task and probably only
relatively few ESP teachers have such time available to them. In a number
of circumstances it may be difficult to justify the amount of research and
preparation needed for highly specific ESP course design unless the course
is expected to run several times.

Type 2
ESP coursesfocusing on the common needs across target groups offer
advantages of practicality and economy. Different courses do not need to
be developed for each and every group but rather a course can be
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developed for a mixed group of students that targets their common needs.
Moreover, students can be interested in topics beyond their own narrow
specialist area. Mason (1994) discusses the planning of an English course
for health care professionals in Finland. Mason found the health care
professionals were interested in topics from various aspects of health care
not just their own.
Type 2 courses are premised on the twin assumptions that (1) a set of
generic skills exists, and (2) the learner first acquires these skills and then
transfers them to his or her own specific discipline or occupation. Ferris
discusses this argument in relation to academic writing instruction:
One of the most persistent and controversial issues in L2 writing is the
debate over the purposes of EAP classes. Should teachers aim to develop
generalised academic writing skills in their students, hoping that these skills
and strategies will transfer to subsequent writing tasks across the curricu-
,
lum? Or should they focus instead on teaching students how to analyse and
imitate the norms of specific discourse communities to which the students
hope to gain admission? (2001: 300).
But does a set of generic skills actually exist? Is the skill of note-taking
in maths the same as note-taking in social studies? Research is clearly
needed to establish whether such generic skills exist and also whether
learners actually transfer the kinds of generalized skills and strategies
taught in general EAP or general occupational English to their own speci-
fic areas.
Type 2 designs are also argued on ’default’ grounds. The argument is
that determining the specific needs of each and every discipline and
occupation and developing teachers’ ability to teach very specific uses of
language is simply unrealistic. For example, Samraj (2002) argues the
impracticality of teaching disciplinary writing or writing in work place
situations in ESL classrooms. She argues that the writing is too complex
and that the rules for it too numerous to be expressed by those within the
group and the attempt to understand places a huge burden on those outside
the group, such as ESL teachers.
One danger in focusing on common but related needs is that in address-
ing generalized needs, no actual needs are addressed. Perhaps all the
students in the general EAP class will write reports in their academic
departments, but how similar are the reports in the diverse departments?
Currie (1999) reports on her experiences of teaching a general EAP course
for students from a range of departments such as biology and economics
and her feeling of unease that she was not teaching the skills her students
 59

could actuallyuse on their content courses and her students’ desire for

greater relevance of the EAP course content to their own academic fields.
Currie tried overcome the problem by introducing a number of activities
to
into her EAP course which encouraged the students to act as ethnogra-
phers and collect information about the communicative practices in their
individual content courses and report and discuss these in the general EAP
class.
Focusing on general needs is suitable in only some circumstances. Johns
and Dudley-Evans (1991) argue that the wide-angled approach is not
suitable for graduate students and professionals.
Type 2 courses focus on a set of generic skills and processes but in the
disciplines and occupational worlds ESP serves, it is products of commu-
nication that are valued. Master argues:
ESP shifted the overemphasis on process back to a legitimate concern for
product, primarily because it reminded us that the world wants products and
does not particularly care how they were created. The concept of genre
analysis has shown us that there are prescribed forms for use in technical
writing, and that in order to be accepted into the occupational subculture or
discourse community, those forms must be adhered to (1997: 30).

Type 3
Type 1 and 2 designs focus the analysis of needs. Course content in
on
them is determined according to the communicative needs learners will
face in the professional, work place or academic groups in which they wish
to enter or progress. Communicative needs in such settings tend to be lin-
guistically complex and demand a certain level of language proficiency.
For example, writing in a profession involves not only production of com-
plex structures and recourse to an extensive vocabulary but also knowledge
of how communicative events are conventionally shaped and formatted.
Because of the link to real world needs, Type 1 and 2 courses are generally
designed for ESL learners with a certain level of English language profi-
ciency. For example, the academic speaking course described above caters
for students with an IELTS proficiency level of 6 or above.
One of the main advantages of Type 3 courses is that students do not
necessarily need to have a high level of proficiency in English. It is pos-
sible to design a course focusing on a variety of English for any profi-
ciency level. Bloor and Bloor (1986) argue that students can acquire the
basic core of English through being exposed to any variety of English.
Moreover, through exposure to subject specific matter learners also learn
form-function relationships in the specialist area:
60

One thing that ESP, in conjunction with a great deal of recent research into
the language of special fields and genres, has shown, is that the most impor-
tant factor in the effective use of the language is that the leaner has com-
mand of the ways in which the grammar of the language works to perform
specific functions in specific contexts. It is now well understood that gram-
matical forms are realisations of meaning not only at the semantic level but
also at the rhetorical level. It is understood that the communicative function
of a form may be variety-specific or genre-specific, and conversely, that the
variety or genre may govern the selection of grammatical form as well of
lexis...unless the student is exposed to input of the appropriate ’special
language’, there is no way that such dependencies can be acquired (Bloor
and Bloor 1986: 22-23).

There are a number of other arguments for this type of design. From a

psychological perspective, learning variety a supply a

may appear to
‘special language’ and thus be equally motivating Type
as as 1 and Type 2
designs. Because Type 3 courses are focused on a special language rather
than on a close link to predicted future communicative needs, they can
serve a wider body of students. For example, the course book Market
Leader can appeal to students with a general interest in business careers.
The course designers do not need to know exactly what specialist area of
business the students will work in.
But should Type 3 courses be classed as ESP courses? After all, they do
not focus on learner needs. Is the term ’ESP’ simply being used as a face
validity strategy in these cases? Is there such an entity as English for
business or English for medicine? Hyland argues that while there is a large
body of research to show that there is discipline and professional specific
variation, generic labels, such as ’academic English’ or ’scientific English’
are simply a ’convenient shorthand for describing general variety’ and that
these labels conceal ’a wealth of discursive complexity’ (2002: 341).
The discourses of the academy do not form an undifferentiated, unitary
mass but a variety of subject-specific literacies. Disciplines have different
views of knowledge, different research practices, and different ways of
seeing the world, and as a result, investigating the practices of those dis-
ciplines will inevitably take us into greater specificity (Hyland 2002: 390).
Type 3 courses often present an array of texts from the various
subfields-this week a text and topic from marketing, next week one from
finan.ce-a conglomeration of ‘varieties’ . Bloor and Bloor (1986) state that
there is a great deal of commonality between language items in one variety
and another. So what language items should be focused on in a Type 3
course design? The basis for selection of language items should be that
 61

research shows that the targeted items occur more frequently in the variety
or that insiders (e.g. those already working in business or academia)
understand these items to be critical. In short, there is a need for some
rationale for the fact that Type 3 courses focus learners’ attention on some
rather than other language items.
One published course book in which the course content is determined on
the basis of research into language use is that of Thurstun and Candlin
(1997). Thursten and Candlin identified frequently occurring lexical items
in a corpus of written academic discourse (1998). They then used this
information as a basis for determining the items of academic vocabulary
that their course book focuses on. However, it is not always the case that
content in Type 3 courses is determined by research evidence showing that
some items are particularly salient in that subject.

Concluding Comments
Arguments canbe made for each of the three course designs shown in
Table 1. To a large extent, choices depend as much on circumstances as on
the preferences of teachers and course designers. Often what drives the
decision about course design is the situation in which teachers and course
designers find themselves. When the students are fairly homogenous in
relation to their target needs, then a narrow-angled course design is not
only feasible, but likely to result.
Yet narrow-angled course designs, despite being theoretically appealing,
have some shortcomings. They can be impractical in terms of time to pre-
pare and can offer a restricted language to students who may not end up
studying or working in the exact group the courses were designed for. Stu-
dents in universities often change courses, take up papers from other disci-
plines and take up papers with very different genres and communicative
demands. The roles in work places are simply too diverse for any one ESP
course to deal with in depth. It seems that ESP can never be specific

enough on the one hand and on the other hand can also be too specific at
the same time.

Received August 2002

62

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