Establishing Predominance Of English For Specific Purposes Within Adult English Language Teaching

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has accumulated substantial tradition in practice, research and theory. It is a common approach in English Language Teaching (ELT) among adults today, starting with high schools, then in academia, pre and in-service training, and life-long learning programs. The role of ESP in each of these is to facilitate work in today’s inevitably international business and scientific environment. It provides language training based on the precise simulation of communicative situations found in the surroundings for which learners are preparing, including, for example, domain specific vocabulary, syntactic and morphological structures, text and speech content structuring, stylistics, intercultural competence. At present, when English is present either as a foreign or second language, learning General English (GE) is to a large degree accomplished before learners start needing English for their jobs. In this way, ESP does not complete GE, but builds upon the foundations laid by it in learners’ prior education. ESP is a channel of communication for the contemporary academia and economics. However, even so, these are still early days for ESP, as it does not yet have a recognised place within academia. Only very recently have we begun to witness the occasional but encouraging emergence of ESP academic courses and departments. This book thus explores practice and research conducted and under way in this field of ELT in order to assist its recognition as an autonomous academic discipline.

With the unrelenting spread of globalization, the English language has been firmly established as the Lingua Franca. Now more than ever, the importance of learning English is paramount within nearly all professional and educational sectors. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has long been accepted as an effective method for teaching English as a foreign language. In recent years, it has experienced an increasing presence in secondary and tertiary education across the globe. This is predominantly due to its learner-centered approach that focuses on developing linguistic competence in the student’s specific discipline, may that be academics, business or tourism, for example. Positioning English for Specific Purposes in an English Language Teaching Context attempts to present and define the relevance and scope of ESP within English Language teaching. From mobile phones as educational tools to the language needs of medical students, the contributors to this volume examine and propose different epistemological and methodological aspects of ESP teaching. Its unique approach to ESP marks this volume out as an important and necessary contribution to existing ESP literature, and one that will be of use to both researchers and practitioners of ESP.

With the unrelenting spread of globalization, the English language has been firmly established as the Lingua Franca. Now more than ever, the importance of learning English is paramount within nearly all professional and educational sectors. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has long been accepted as an effective method for teaching English as a foreign language. In recent years, it has experienced an increasing presence in secondary and tertiary education across the globe. This is predominantly due to its learner-centered approach that focuses on developing linguistic competence in the student’s specific discipline, may that be academics, business or tourism, for example. Positioning English for Specific Purposes in an English Language Teaching Context attempts to present and define the relevance and scope of ESP within English Language teaching. From mobile phones as educational tools to the language needs of medical students, the contributors to this volume examine and propose different epistemological and methodological aspects of ESP teaching. Its unique approach to ESP marks this volume out as an important and necessary contribution to existing ESP literature, and one that will be of use to both researchers and practitioners of ESP.

Drawing on the contributions of 75 leading authors in the field, this 2010 Edition of the respected Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education provides adult education scholars, programme administrators, and teachers with a solid foundation for understanding the current guiding beliefs, practices, and tensions faced in the field, as well as a basis for developing and refining their own approaches to their work and scholarship. Offering expanded discussions in the areas of social justice, technology, and the global dimensions of adult and continuing education, the Handbook continues the tradition of previous volumes with discussions of contemporary theories, current forms and contexts of practice, and core processes and functions. Insightful chapters examine adult and continuing education as it relates to gender and sexuality, race, our aging society, class and place, and disability.

This edited collection provides a comprehensive and locally situated understanding of English language teaching from the perspective of dedicated and experienced language professionals and researchers in Costa Rica. The book uses a series of reflective sections that interconnect theory and practice in a non-English-dominant context in order to inform and transform pedagogical practices. The chapters depict a wide-ranging image of English language teaching and learning in the region, encouraging in-service teachers, TESOL specialists, and ELT scholars to critically reassess, rethink, and relearn teaching and learning as more than a political decision in an educational curriculum. Ultimately promoting the practice as dynamic, ever-changing, and culturally situated, the book will be highly relevant to researchers, academics, scholars, and faculty in the fields of teacher education, educational research, EFL, and modern foreign languages.

This book explores cross-international experiences in the field of adult English language teaching and learning, using cross-cultural dialogues to hear voices from different countries and different settings – formal, informal and non-formal – discussing how their lifelong learning has or is still in the process of helping them to change their lives. The book addresses two major questions: (1) How do adults learn languages and transform themselves through learning? (2) How do authorities and societies build capacity for sustainable language development? It will be of interest to researchers, policymakers and adult language teachers, concerned with diverse aspects of teaching and learning English as lingua franca for enhancing the public good internationally. The book draws on the way in which the Western paradigm of lifelong learning was applied by an international team of inspired professionals to English language education in the Tempus project “Lifelong Language Learning University Centre Network for New Career Opportunities and Personal Development (UNICO)”. This project was undertaken by eleven universities in three countries: the Siberian Federal District of the Russian Federation, the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Republic of Tajikistan, in partnership with the Charles University in Prague, the Institute of Education from the University College London, and the University of Córdoba in Spain.