brief-introduction-of-esp-teaching-and-research-in-china--中国专门用途英语教学与研究概况.doc

本科毕业设计（论文）
( 2011 届 )
题 目：

中国专门用途英语教学与研究概况
Brief Introduction of ESP Teaching and Research in China

Contents
Chapter One Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------1
Chapter Two An Overview of ESP Teaching and Research -----------------1
2.1 The Definition of ESP -----------------------------------------------------------------------1
2.2 The Classification of ESP ---------------------------------------------------------------2
2.3 The Development of ESP -------------------------------------------------------------------3
2.3.1 Register Analysis -------------------------------------------------------------------3
2.3.2 Rhetorical or Discourse Analysis -----------------------------------------------4
2.3.3 Target Situation Analysis ---------------------------------------------------------4
2.3.4 Skills and Strategies Approach --------------------------------------------------5
2.3.5 Learning-centred Approach -----------------------------------------------------5
2.4 The Development of ESP in China -------------------------------------------------------6
Chapter Three The Course Design of ESP --------------------------------------6
3.1 The Course Design of ESP in China -----------------------------------------------------6
3.2 Needs Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------7
3.1.1 Target Need ---------------------------------8
3.1.2 Learning Needs ----------------------------------------------------------------------8
3.1.3 The Needs of China’s Students ---------------------------------------------------9
3.2 Approaches to ESP Course Design -------------------------9
3.2.1 Language-centred Course Design ------------------------------------------------10
3.2.2 Skills-centred Course Design ------------------------------------------------------10
3.2.3 A Learning-centred Approach -------------------------------------------11
Chapter Four The ESP Teaching Materials in China ------------------------12
4.1 The Relationship with Teacher, Student and Teaching Method ------------------12
4.2 The Existed Problem of Chinese ESP Teaching Materials ----------------------- 13
4.3 The Principle and Method - 13
Chapter Five The Role of ESP Teacher ----------------------------------------14
Chapter Six Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------15
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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deeply thanks to my supervisor Ms. Li Pei, who has offered me a lot of valuable help in writing this thesis. Without her help and wise guidance, it is impossible for me to finish the thesis. At the same time, I want to say thank you to my good friends who help me out when I come to troubles in the process of writing. Finally, my gratitude also goes to my roommates who give me lots of advice.
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Abstract：With the development of our country’s society, and in-depth study of linguistics, English for Special Purposes is becoming more and more important in China’s English Education. This paper describes the characteristics and contents of English for Specific Purposes, and comparing the domestic and foreign status of teaching studies of ESP, making a more comprehensive assessment and putting forward specific requirements in developing teaching materials, strategies, curriculum, evaluation and so on within Chinese English teaching, which hopes to give the practice of ESP teaching a little revelation.
Key Words：English for Specific Purposes; teaching studies; analyzing and requiring; revelation

摘要：随着我们国家社会的发展，以及语言学的深入研究，特殊用途英语教学在中国的英语教学上也越来越突显出其重要性。本文通过介绍特殊用途英语的的特点和内容，调查研究并比较国内外ESP的教学和研究现状，对中国英语教学中的师资教材制定、教学策略、课程设置等多方面做出比较全面的分析并且提出具体的要求，从而希望能给我国ESP教学的实践以一定的启示。
关键词：特殊用途英语；教学研究；分析要求；启示

IV

Chapter One Introduction
ESP (English for Specific Purposes) teaching is a branch of the field of English linguistics and firstly appeared in English speaking countries in the early 1960s. Like any form of language teaching, ESP is primarily concerned with learning. It can say that its appearance and development comes from the needs of the community. Along with the increasing global political, economic and cultural exchange, the status of English being the universal language in the world is increasingly getting hold of strength. More and more people begin to pay attention to English and learn it. There is a great enthusiasm in studying English around the world In order to meet the various kinds of English learners’ needs of different purposes, ESP was born. While the continuous growing English learning enthusiasm lead to the rapid development of ESP.
English for Specific Purposes entered into the field of English teaching by its special role. ESP has been valued by many linguistic experts in China and a large amount of colleges have set up various kinds of ESP courses. The field of application linguistics also has the research direction. However, English for Specific Purposes is not very popular to all of the people. They do not know the main contents of ESP. Is there any function and future about ESP? The objective of this paper is to introduce the development, application of ESP to Chinese teachers and students.
This thesis is divided into four parts. Mainly talking about what is ESP, the derivation, classification and development of ESP, the practical application of the course design in the form of a syllabus, materials and assessment, the role of the ESP teacher and providing information about resources to help the teacher.

Chapter Two An Overview of ESP Teaching and Research
2.1 The Definition of ESP
From the early 1960’s, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to become one of the most prominent areas of EFL (English as a foreign language). It is a new branch of English subject and one learning-centered teaching method. After the outbreak of World War II, with the rapid development of science and great increase of economic activities in western countries, international exchanges becoming more frequent, English must be the international common language as the key to the ties of international science and technology. Therefore, the purposes of people learning English is very clear that commanding English as a tool for servicing their engaged profession. In order to meet the needs of different people learning English, ESP has come into being. And the incessant study passion also leads to the continued rapid development of English for Specific Purposes.
Since the late 1960s, there were some famous books about English for Specific Purposes. They have given different elaboration of ESP. In 1964, “The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching” by Halliday, McIntosh & Strevens wrote: “English for civil servants; for policemen; for officials of the law; for dispensers and nurses; for specialists in agriculture; for engineers and fitters.” After them, a few representative literature came forth continuously, such as “English for Specific Purposes” by Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters and “Developments in English for Specific Purposes” by T. Dudley Evans & M. ST John.

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Hutchinson & Waters (1987) regarded ESP as a method but not a product and thought that what the ESP including was not a kind of special language, teaching material or ways. They pointed out “The base of English for Specific Purposes is a simply question: Why a learner needs a foreign language?”(Hutchinson&Waters,1987). This question’s answer is related to the learner’s requisite language and environment. It decides the leading role of requirement in ESP and the requirement is changing by different intention. So what we need to do before making up our mind in learning English is to make sure for what purposes.

2.2 The Classification of ESP
In the classification, ESP can be divided into three parts: English for Science and Technology(EST); English for the Social Science (ESS) and English for Business and Economics (EBE). Each branch still can be separated into two points: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP). The way of this division is called “Trichotomy”. It was firstly put forward by Hutchinson & Waters in 1987.There are another division existing called “Dichotomy”. Dudley-Evans and St John(1998) consider the ESP as two fields in tradition: English for Academic Purposes(EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes(EOP). This kind of division is based on the each phase which ESP course was found out. It is significant that they can affect the professional degree in ESP course design. EAP means that people learn English for academic exchange and receipt of higher education, while EOP is for effective occupational technical training to various personnel. The latter is mainly in studying English for dealing with specific situation, the needs of communication, and some different professional and technical missions. Not being the same, the former usually learn language common core or the English in connection with their major.
Is ESP different to English for General Purposes (EGP)? If we agree with this definition, we may begin to find out how broad ESP really is. Sometimes, you may ask “What is the difference between the ESP and EGP approach EGP (English for General Purposes) mainly refers to the typical language courses at school. The aim of students’ study is for mastering balanced language’s four basic skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Because the actual needs of the learners are potential, uncertain and the main teaching contents of General English only from

the general language knowledge and skills. Relative to EGP, ESP has two obvious characteristics: Firstly, the clear range of application. The user has to use English in the field of his work due to specific industry needs. Secondly, there is a specific language content, namely specialization content. The learning goals of EGP and EFP are absolutely different. However, EGP is the base of ESP which develops and improves students’ language working ability further aiming at their practical needs on top of EGP developing students’ language rudiments. Therefore, ESP and EGP can be either parallel or consecutive relationship.
2.3 The Development of ESP
Hutchison and Waters (1987) have said: From the early beginnings in the 1960s, ESP has undergone four main phases of development: Register Analysis; Rhetorical or Discourse Analysis; Target Situation Analysis; Skills and Strategies. And it is now in a fifth phase, A Learning-Centred Approach. It should be pointed out first of all that ESP is not a great universal phenomenon. Although ESP has developed at different speeds in different countries, the research norms both are the study of English for Science and Technology.
2.3.1 Register Analysis
Register analysis, the concept of special language, took place mainly in the 1960s and early 1970s and was associated in particular with the work of Peter Strevens (Halliday, McIntosh &Strevens,1964),Jack Ewer(Ewer and Latorre,1969) and John Swales (1971)(Hutchinson& Waters,1987). In the late 1960s, under the influence of American structural linguistics theory, people began to conclude and analyze focusing on sentence structure, verb form, glossary and so on of an article. What the research basing on the theory of language variation is called register analysis. It mainly researched and analyzed some characteristics in using language in different language environment.
In the early register analysis moment, it applied itself to researching the questions of vocabulary and grammar in scientific discourse. Operating on the basic principle that the English of, say, Electrical Engineering constituted a specific register different from that of, say, Biology or of General English, the aim of the analysis was to identify the grammatical and lexical features of these registers. Teaching materials then took these linguistic features as the important evidence for making syllabus. The most representative of such a syllabus is that of “A Course in Basic Scientific English” by Ewer& Latorre(1969). They was the pedagogic one of making the ESP course more relevant to learners’ needs and producing a syllabus which gave high priority to the language forms students would meet in their Science studies and in turn would give low priority to forms they would not meet. In fact, register analysis did not reveal the more difference between ESP and EGP in any forms such as the present simple tense, the passive voice and nominal compounds. Of course, we can not overlook the significance of register analysis. It undoubted acted as a sign for ESP teaching at that time.
2.3.2 Rhetorical or Discourse Analysis.
With the further development of linguistics theory, there were serious flaws in the register analysis-based syllabus. And as it happened, register analysis was rapidly overtaken by development in the world of linguistics. ESP have turned into second phase of development shifted attention to the level above the sentence from the first stage of its development focusing on language at the sentence level. ESP became more closely involved with the emerging field of rhetorical or discourse analysis. There were some famous persons such as Henry Widdowson, John Lackstron, Larry Selinker,Louis Trimble and Mary Todd-Trimble. The representative book“ English for Science and Technology: A Discourse Approach” by Louis Trimble (1985) advised authors using four levels to organize discourse: A. The objectives of the total discourse; B. The general rhetorical functions that develop the objectives of Level A; C. The specific rhetorical functions that develop the general rhetorical functions of Level B; D. The rhetorical techniques that provide relationships within and between the rhetorical units of Level C (Huchinson & Water,1987).
The important representative people Widdowson and Allen（1974）expressed this stage succinctly. They have said:
We take the view that the difficulties which the students encounter arise not so much from a defective knowledge of the system of English, but from an unfamiliarity with English use, and that consequently their needs cannot be met by a course which simply provides further practice in the composition of sentences, but only by one which develops a knowledge of how sentences are used in the performance of different communicative acts.
The second stage had prominent progress than the first. It breathed powerful activity into ESP research and teaching and acted a very important role in mastering English of different structure and presentation in different professional f