A Preliminary Study Of ESP Course Design At Higher Vocational Institutions

With the unprecedented social and economic developments in China, General English (GE) teaching is unable to meet the social needs. English for Specific Purposes (ESP), as a branch of English language teaching (ELT), has been put on the schedule and begins to play a very important role. For the students at higher vocational institutions, it is extremely important to master ESP for successful communication with people from different countries.Focusing on ESP course design, this thesis first introduces ESP definitions, classifications, origins and development, and then presents its related study. Chapter three discusses ESP course design from the perspectives of theories, approaches, application, evaluation and modification. Firstly, the thesis elucidates three foundations of ESP course design: linguistic and learning theories and needs analysis. Linguistic and learning theories promote the active development of ESP course design, while needs analysis shows the most characteristic feature of ESP course design. Secondly, it continues to explore three approaches to ESP course design. They are the approaches of language-centeredness, skills-centeredness, and learning-centeredness. The first two approaches see the learner as a user of language, while the third takes language learning into account. Thirdly, it discusses the application of learning-centered course design from the perspectives of syllabus design and material compilation. At last, this chapter revolves around the issues of evaluation (learner and course) and modification (material and methodology) of ESP course design.Chapter four, from five perspectives, illustrates ESP course design in detail by a case study of ESP textbook compilationThe purpose of the paper is to conduct researches into the application of ESP course design at higher vocational institutions. But the study on various factors in the process is done only from certain perspectives, some of which deserve following up.