Selecting Materials for ESP Classes

3.1. The Students’ Age and Personalities

The students’ age is a very important factor that must be considered when teaching materials.

When dealing with mixed classes made up of students belonging to different age groups, teachers can

easily notice their different reactions to the materials proposed. Teenagers’ tendency is to get easily

involved in activities, but they also tend to lose their enthusiasm too quickly. They need diversity and

challenging tasks to keep them focused. Adult learners can be divided into two groups according to their

needs and expectations. Firstly, there are adults who started learning English at an early stage of their

lives, they have continuously improved it and the consequences are visible. Secondly, there are adults

who start studying English when they are in their thirties or forties because their job requires it firmly. In

their case, the pressure of acquiring a lot of information in a rather short period of time turns out to be a

real obstacle in the process of learning English.

At the beginning of the course, the class can be seen as a group of individuals and different

personalities. A relaxed atmosphere will encourage creativity, cooperation and constructive competition.

Little by little, the teacher will be able to view the class not as a group of individuals, but as a whole. The

choice of materials and teaching strategies will be in accordance with the group personality.

3.2. The Students’ Needs

The general educational system is “inadequate or only partly sufficient” (Vizental, 2008:132) for

adult professionals. For the people who take up the study of English in order to achieve specific needs,

“the language course must reflect these needs both in terms of content (textbook or curriculum) and

techniques employed, so as to equip them with the most functional language skills” (132). In other

words, mastering the technical vocabulary may prove insufficient for students training to become

engineers if they have not developed the predominant skills for the job. They may know lists of technical

words by heart, they may be able to translate technical texts of high complexity, but they may find great

difficulty in taking part in conversations and in expressing their own ideas on the same topics fluently and

coherently.

The ESP course must bring together the objectives of the curriculum and the students’ needs.

Before designing the course, the teacher must make a clear comparison between what students know at

the present time and what they are supposed to know at the end of the course. The syllabus, the methods

and the learning strategies depend closely on this needs analysis. Unfortunately, there is no standard

model of needs analysis. It is about using resources as profitably as possible and about cooperating with

students in order to decide on the next step.

A diagnostic test may be used to find out about the students’ weaknesses. If we analyze the needs

of a class of students training to become mechanical engineers, we can see that they all have the same

general objective, which is being able to use English successfully at their future working place.

However, there are students who already have a job and, consequently, they may have a more specific

aim in their mind. Thus, some of them might need to have a good command of English to handle

telephone conversations with their foreign partners, to make presentations or write emails in English, or

participate in meetings, which involves being able to socialize in English. Since it is impossible to divide

the class into several groups and work with them separately in order to meet their exact needs, all that the

teacher can do is find a compromise solution, trying to give equal attention to all groups of students.

3.3. The Curriculum

Unlike the traditional language curriculum which “followed the textbook closely, enumerating the

texts within and assigning a certain amount of time for each lesson”, the modern language curriculum is

centered on “language skills, the contents to be taught being subordinated to skill development”

(Vizental, 2008:125).

The ESP teacher can choose among several coursebooks. These contain lessons which may have

different titles, but they tackle the same topics, focusing on the same communicative functions and on the

same language.

3.4. The Students’ Linguistic Proficiency

The students’ linguistic proficiency must be taken into consideration when selecting materials and

deciding on the teaching strategy the teacher is going to use. Beginners need simple texts and extensive

drilling. Intermediate students are able to cope with more complex texts and the teacher must choose

activities which encourage free production and independent work. The teacher can choose from a variety

of authentic materials in order to develop advanced students’ creativity. The learners’ linguistic

proficiency also influences the amount of time they spend on certain activities, the amount of new

vocabulary introduced, the types of activities, etc.

4.1. Ready-made Materials vs. Tailored Materials

The decision on whether to use ready-made materials or tailored materials is closely connected

with the students’ subject area. If the subject area is more general, the ESP teacher has more chances to

find appropriate materials. If it is more specific, the teacher may find it difficult to find suitable materials

to meet his/her students’ needs. In this case, the generally accepted view is that the ESP teacher should

select from the existing ready-made materials and only “when all other possibilities of providing

materials have been exhausted” (Hutchinson, Waters, 1994: 125) should they resort to tailored materials.

There is a wide variety of ready-made materials available all over the world. All that the teacher

needs to do is find the most appropriate one for his/her students. The most important advantage of using

coursebooks is that they save the teacher a lot of time and effort creating new materials. Another

advantage is that they are usually accompanied by teacher’s guides, additional materials for the students,

self-study materials as well as audio and video resources.

The coursebook choice is the most appropriate one on condition that it is based on a flexible

approach that combines its use with its adaptation to each and every situation in the learning/teaching

process. It is generally argued that teachers should not become the slaves of coursebooks. If we compare

several classes of students, we can notice that each one is unique even if their needs and interests are

similar. They may have different reactions to the same materials introduced to them by the same teacher,

in the same way. The fact that an activity has been successful with a group does not guarantee its success

with another group. In other words, the teacher should feel free not to use certain materials that his/her

students might find boring or useless and insist on others that they find attractive.

Swales (1980:13) argues that “in ESP the coursebook is seen rather more as an evil, perhaps

necessary at first, but to be dispensed with as soon as possible”. In spite of all the drawbacks involved in

the use of ESP coursebooks, it must be pointed out that most students feel comfortable with them.

Besides, there are three other positive aspects about using them and they cannot be neglected. First of all,

they are easily accessible when the teacher has no time to create tailored materials. Secondly, they are the

only tool an inexperienced teacher can resort to since he/she is not capable of producing his/her own

teaching materials. Last but not least, the ESP teacher adapts his/her strategies to the class size (usually

large and even oversized classes), to the students’ level (usually heterogeneous classes) and to the

students’ needs (which are rarely similar).

On the other hand, a coursebook alone is more often than not unlikely to meet the students’ needs,

the teacher being often forced to resort to additional materials. Moreover, adaptation of these materials is

often required, depending on different factors, such as the cultural background of the students. The choice

of a technical book, for instance, may also be dictated by the teacher’s experience in teaching technical

English. Some prefer technically demanding coursebooks whereas others select more accessible ones.

Innovative and confident teachers “can feel that some publishers are too conservative in their approach,

preferring to publish books that do not take too many risks with novel teaching approaches” (Frendo,

2008:44).

According to some teachers, coursebooks are felt as “contrived because they have been designed

to focus on particular lexis or forms” (Frendo, 2008:44) whereas others argue that “there is nothing

inherently wrong with using non-authentic language, and it is better to use an artificial text which is

packed full of useful lexis, or simplified in some way, because this is effective and efficient” (Frendo:44).

Designing tailored materials by ESP teachers is a time-consuming activity and, unfortunately, not very

economical. It is estimated that it takes from 5 to 15 hours to prepare a lesson which will be taught in no

more than an hour. This is the main reason why designing tailored materials should be seen as the last

resort.

In spite of this essential drawback, tailor-made materials are meant to meet the students’ exact

needs. They can be resorted to by teachers, usually more experienced teachers, whenever they feel that

the coursebook is insufficient for the students to reach their aims.

4.2. Authentic vs. Non-authentic Texts

Flowerdew and Peacock (2001:182) contrast the advantages and disadvantages of using authentic

materials in EAP. First of all, they point out that authentic texts represent real-world language use.

Secondly, authentic texts keep the whole meaning of the initial text. Thirdly, it is authentic texts that

prepare trainees for real-world situations. On the other hand, the fact that a text is authentic does not mean

that it is relevant. Moreover, authentic texts are often too difficult from a linguistic point of view. The last

disadvantage of resorting to authentic texts is that not every authentic text is authentic for a specific class

of students.

Whether the materials selected for ESP classes should be authentic or non-authentic has been

widely questioned in the ESP literature. ESP teachers’ tendency to prefer the former to the latter has been

more and more visible lately. According to them, texts should be taken from the real world and not

created for pedagogical reasons because they provide a perfect and natural connection between the

artificial environment of the classroom and the real world in which the students will put into practice the

language they are learning at school. As Reppen (2010) points out, teachers “have expressed a preference

for authentic materials in their lessons, using language from natural texts instead of ready-made

examples. In this sense, such corpora provide a ready resource of natural or authentic texts for language

learning”.

Authentic materials are extremely important for ESP students because they provide a realistic

context for tasks and activities connected with the students’ needs. They increase the students’

motivation, but, unfortunately, they prove to be quite difficult to adapt to the learners’ level of language,

especially when it comes to beginners.

Authentic materials show how English is used naturally by native speakers. Claypole (2010:91)

emphasizes the importance of using authentic, relevant materials while Gilmore (2007:11) shows that

“authentic material is likely to expose learners to a wider variety of grammatical and lexical features but

with less frequency than contrived input specifically designed to highlight particular target language”.

Authentic materials can be handed out to each student, asking them to work individually or, even

better, in pairs or small groups because in this way they will feel more enthusiastic about carrying out a

task. The authentic material may be accompanied by a question handout. The pairs and the groups should

be made up of students of different levels so that they complement each other/one another. For the

authentic materials to be effective, the questions must offer the students the chance to practise English, to

become confident in their English skills and to come in contact with cultural customs and differences.

Coursebooks and authentic materials are not mutually exclusive. Unadapted texts are still

authentic even if they appear in a coursebook. Coursebook listening activities which contain unadapted

native speaker interviews are authentic since they have not been changed.

There are various sources from which authentic materials can be taken. Nowadays, teachers

choose the Internet as the most reliable source of authentic texts. Teachers and students alike have access

to a wide variety of materials, from texts, visual materials, newspapers and magazines to live radio and

TV. Unlike printed materials which date quickly, the Internet is continuously updated, offering students a

lot of information about how the technological world develops. The resources of authentic English may

maintain and stimulate motivation, the result being even more encouraging if students understand that

they do not need to know every single word of the text in order to get its general idea.