UNIT 2

COURSE DESIGN
Refers to the process of interpreting information about learners
needs for the purpose of producing teaching-learning experiences
such as course objectives, timetabling, materials and so on.
Factors affecting ESP course design

WHAT? HOW?
ESP
Language
syllabus course
Learning
descriptions theories
Nature of
particular
language
and
learning
situation

WHO? WHY?
WHERE?
WHEN?

Needs analysis
 Language Description
We have a number of ways of describing language available to us. It is,
therefore, important to understand the main features of each of these
descriptions in order to consider how they can be used most
appropriately in ESP course. In this chapter we shall give a brief outline
of the various ideas about language that have influenced ESP in some
way. We can identify.
1. Classical or traditional grammar
Descriptions of English and other languages were based on the
grammars of the classical languages, Greek and Latin. These
were based six main stages of development on an analysis of
the role played by each word in the sentence. Languages were
described in this way because the classical language were case-
based languages where the grammatical function of each word
in the sentence was made apparent by the use of appropriate
inflections.
Language Description
2. Structural Linguistics/ slot and filler
- technique for analysing sentence structures. Under the slot-and-filler
method, a number of functional slots are identified, and then the words and
phrases that can fill them (i.e., fillers) are analyzed.
Diabetes mellitus unconsciousness

Inadequate heat loss cause shock.

Some foods bad teeth.

A dog bite death.

An electric shock can result in heat stroke.

Insufficient calcium may blisters.

Severe shock allergies.

Burns lead to asphyxia.

A hemorrhage rabies.
 Language Description

3. Transformational Generative (TG) grammar

The structural view of language as a collection of syntagmatic patterns held
sway until the publication in 1957 of Syntactic structures by Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky argued that the structural description was too superficial, because it
only described the surface structure of the language, an thus could not
explain relationships of meaning which were quite clearly there, but which
were no realized in the surface structure. Example:
John is easy to please
John is eager to please.
According to a structural description, indicate the same relationship between
the words in the sentences. The relationship is not the same: in the first
sentence John is the receiver of pleasing, while in the second he is doing the
pleasing. Similarly the identify of meaning between an active and passive
sentence would not be shown. E.g
Transformational Generative (TG) grammar

The city Bank has taken over Acme Holding

Acme Holdings has been taken over by the City Bank.

-2 levels of meaning:
1. Deep level- concerned with the organization of thoughts

2. Surface level- thoughts are expressed through the syntax of the

language
-Performance (surface structures) vs. Competence (deep level
rules)
Language Description
4. Language variation and register analysis
- language varies according to the context of use that enables us to
distinguish formal from informal, written from spoken, self-sufficient
language from context-dependent.
Language Description
5. Functional/Notional Grammar
Functional-concerned with social behaviour
and represents the intention of the speaker or
writer
Notions –reflect the way the human mind
thinks.
Language Description
6. Discourse (Rhetorical) analysis
- looking at how meaning is generated between
sentences.

Can I go out to play? Refusal of a request

It’s raining.

Have you cut the grass yet? Reason for an excuse

It’s raining.

I think I’ll go out for a walk. Advice or mild warning

It’s raining.
 NEED ANALYSIS

- TARGET NEEDS
- Necessities: according to the demands of the target situation, this is what
the learner has to know in order to function effectively in that situation.
- Lacks: according to what the learner already knows, decide what
necessities are missing. There is a gap between the existing proficiency
and the target proficiency.
- Wants: according to what considered from an objective, we have to say
that a need does no exist independent of a person. It is people who build
their images of their needs on the basis of data relating to themselves and
their environment.
 THEORIES LEARNING

1. Behaviourism: learning as habit formation

 Second language learning should reflect and imitate

the perceived processes of mother tongue learning
-Never translate.
-New language should always be dealt with in the
sequence: hear, speak, read, write.
-Frequent repetition is essential to effective learning.
-All errors must be immediately corrected.
 2. Mentalism: thinking as rule-governed activity

Learning consists not of forming habits but of

acquiring rules – a process in which individual
experiences are used by the mind to
formulate a hypothesis.
3. Cognitive code: learners as thinking beings

takes the learner to be an active processor of

information
We (learners) learn by thinking about and
trying to make sense of what we see, feel, and
hear.
4. The affective factor: learners emotional beings

the learners will learn easily when he or she is

actively thinking about of what they are
learning.
5. Learning and acquisition
Learning is seen as conscious process while
acquisition proceeds and unconsciously.
 T
In essence it sees the ESP course as helping learners to develop skills and
strategies which will continue to develop after the ESP course itself. Its aim
is not to provide a specified corpus of linguistick knowledge but to make the
learners into better processors of information.