Approaches to Course Design

OVERVIEW ESP Course design Approaches to course design in ESP 2

ESP ESP (English for Specific Purposes) involves teaching and learning of specific skills and language needed by particular learners for a particular purpose. ESP makes use of the methodology and activities of the disciplines it serves. ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities.

COURSE DESIGN Course design is the process by which the raw data about a learning need is interpreted in order to produce an integrated series of teaching-learning experiences, whose ultimate aim is to lead the learners to a particular state of knowledge 4

APPROACHES TO COURSE DESIGN i.Language-Centered Approach ii.Skills-Centered Approach iii.Learning-Centered Approach

LANGUAGE-CENTERED APPROACH It is the simplest and more familiar kind to English teachers. It is particularly common in ESP. It aims to draw as direct a connection as possible between the analysis of the target situation and the content of the ESP course. A language-centered approach says: this the nature of the target situation performance determines ESP course.

Cont.... It has a number of weaknesses: i.it might be considered a learner-centered approach because it starts from the learners and their needs but in reality its not learner-centered. The learner is simply used as a means of identifying the target situation. ii.The language-centered process can also be criticized for being a static and inflexible procedure. iii.The language-centered analysis of target situation data is only at the surface level. It reveals very little about the competence that underlined the performance

SKILLS-CENTERED APPROACH This approach aimed to help learners for developing skills and strategies which continue after the ESP course by making learners better processors of information. A skills-centered approach says: we must look behind target performance data to discover what processes enable someone to perform. Those processes will determine the ESP course

Cont… The skills-centered approach based on two fundamental principles: The basic theoretical hypothesis is that underlying any language behavior are certain skills and strategies, which the learner uses in order to procedure. The pragmatic basis for the skills-centered approach derives from a distinction made by Widdowson (1981) between goal-oriented courses and process oriented courses.

Cont… Needs analysis plays two roles in a skill-centered approach: It provides a basis for discovering the essential competence that enables people to perform in the target situation. It enables the course designer to discover the potential knowledge and abilities that the learners bring to the ESP course.

3: Learning-Centered Approach This approach is based on the principle that learning is totally determined by the learner. As teachers we can influence what we teach, but what learners learn is determined by the learners alone. In this approach learning is seen as a process in which the learners use what knowledge or skills they have in order to make sense of the flow of new information. Learning is not just a mental process, it is a process of negotiation between individuals and society.

Cont…… A learning-centered approach says: We must look beyond the competence that enables someone to perform, because what we really want to discover is not the competence itself, but how someone acquires that competence

Summary Language-centered approach concentrates on performance. Skills-centered approach concentrates on competence. Learning-centered approach concentrates on how to get competence.