Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters (1987, pp.157-158) have said that besides the normal functions of a classroom teacher, the ESP teacher will have to deal with needs analysis, syllabus design, materials writing or adaptation and evaluation.
Clearly, an ESP teacher has to do heavy work-load. Most of their tasks really hard and new for them and in some fields they are “all too often reluctant dwellers in a strange and uncharted land”. Therefore, during conquering the new land, the ESP pioneer will face three main problems: 1) the lack of an ESP orthodoxy to provide a ready-made guide; 2) lack of content knowledge that ESP teacher has to cope with; 3) the change in the status of English Language Teaching.
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2.3.1. Lack of an ESP orthodoxy to provide a ready-made guide
Opposite to GE courses, when receiving an ESP course, ESP teachers almost do not have any clear guide from the textbook or the syllabus. They have to find the ways to solve problems by themselves. Therefore, they do not have official guidance that can be used in all fields of ESP. When they do not have real guidance they will face too many risks that influence their work. Tom Hutchinson
& Alan Waters (1987) have given the idea about ESP teacher’s problem “Lacking a long tradition which might give some stability, ESP has frequently been a hotbed of conflict – The Wild West of ELT. ESP teachers – New settlers – in this land must often have found it difficult to find their bearings with no agreed maps to guide them”. Moreover, “ESP teachers cannot turn to linguistics and psychology in the hope of finding ready-made, straightforward answers to the problems that they will meet. Crabble (1994) also had the same view point with Tom Hutchinson &
Alan Waters when talking about the lack of guidance. The teacher of an ESP course is not provided with ready-made solutions. He or she has to start by thinking more fundamentally about the problem (as cited in Pham, 2011). From Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters’ idea of the question of using authentic texts also illustrate the kind of problems arises. Pham (2011) also added more opinions about ESP texts. In preparing the ESP texts, teachers try to get authentic texts. These texts are in general difficult not only because they do not take the degree of second language proficiency of the learners into account, but also native speaker knowledge is assumed in the discussion of the subject.
In short, coming to a new land, ESP teachers face the first problem.
However, it is said that “where there is a will, there will be a way”. To be the owner of this new land requires an open mind, curiosity, and a degree of skepticism. ESP teachers need to arm themselves with a sound knowledge of both theoretical and practical developments in ELT in order to be able to make the range of decisions they are called upon to make. All ESP teachers are in effect pioneers who are helping to shape the world of ESP (Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters, 1987).
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Most of current English teachers at universities and colleges in Vietnam are trained in foreign language universities. After graduation, they teach General English. However, after that, they are required to teach students with special purposes without any knowledge about this new “special purpose”. In General English, the needs of the students are broadly defined but not very detailed therefore teachers only impart the knowledge of language and language skills.
Meanwhile, a special purpose program is typical limited to the various aspects of the language that is going to be taught such as emphases in some special skills, items of vocabulary, grammar points, etc…. The big obstacle for ESP teachers here is not about language knowledge that is about the content knowledge, a completely new field they have to face. Some ESP teachers feel nervous when they are required to teach an ESP course. They think that when they do not have content knowledge about the field they are going to teach, they will not finish their duties.
However, when many ESP teachers think that before teaching an ESP course they have to update their content knowledge, Hutchinson & Waters (1987) have another opinion when raising a question “What kind of knowledge is required of the ESP teacher? And they have advised that ESP teachers do not need to learn content knowledge. They have required three things only: a positive attitude towards the ESP content; knowledge of the fundamental principles of the subject area and an awareness of how much they probably already know. And to overcome the problem, ESP teachers need to equip a very special skill “the ability to ask intelligent questions”. These two authors have also defined more problems for ESP teachers in this part of problem are: many ESP teachers think that the content of ESP materials need to be highly specialized and many ESP teachers find it difficult to comprehend ESP subject matter (p.161). According to them, this problem arises from four causes: first, there is a tradition in education of separating the Humanities and the Sciences. Languages have usually been allocated to the Humanities camp. The result has been that English teachers often receive little or no education in the Science. Then, many ESP teachers are reluctant settlers in the new territory. They would prefer to be teaching Literature and Social English in
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the comfortable environs of ELT. Next, considering the scale of the ESP revolution it must be admitted that little effort has been made to retrain teachers or to at least allay their fears. Finally, the general attitude in ESP seems to be to expect teachers to conform to the requirements of the target situation.
To sum up, the lack of content knowledge in teaching ESP is a big problem for ESP teachers. It brings many difficulties to ESP teachers and makes them feel unconfident. Therefore, to overcome this problem, it is essential that any approach to ESP teacher training should try to dispel the fears and hostility that many teachers have towards ESP subject matter. They should be shown that content knowledge areas are not difficult to understand and can be interesting. Most important of all, they should be helped to release that they already have much of the knowledge needed to understand the subject matter and build up the ESP teacher’s confidence in coming to terms with it (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987).
2.3.3. The change in the status of English Language Teaching.
Apart from three main problematic domains as Hutchinson & Waters (1987) have mentioned before is the change in the status of English Language Teaching. They have said that one of the most important features of ESP in relation to General English is that the status of English changes from being a subject in its own right to a service industry for other specialism. This change leads to the lowering of status for the ESP teachers. John (1981, as cited in Hutchinson & Waters, 1987) listed five problems that English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers complain of: low priority in timetabling: ESP teachers have no choice for the timetable of ESP course. They are passive in choosing the time for the course. And then the two next lists are ESP teachers lack the personal/
professional contact with content teachers and lower status/ grade than content teachers. Hutchinson & Waters have also had the same point of view as John’s in saying that when ESP teachers have to work in close cooperation with subject specialists who are responsible for the learners’ work or study experience outside the ESP classroom, this is not always an easy relationship: suspicion of motives is common. The effectiveness of the relationship depends greatly on how it is
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handled by both parties, but, since it is usually the ESP teachers who have enlisted the help of the subject specialist, it is their main responsibility to ensure that potential problems are anticipated and avoided. They have also emphasized that most important of all is that such cooperation should be a two-way process: the subject specialist can help the ESP teacher in learning more about the learners’
target situation. At the same time the ESP teacher can make the subject specialist more aware of the language problems learners (or ESP teachers) face.
Furthermore, thinking that ESP teachers have lower status than content teachers also makes ESP teachers feel not confident when they want to suggest the cooperation with content teachers. Besides the problems in cooperation with content teachers, ESP teachers also have another big problem in cooperation from other English teachers; that is the isolation from other teachers of English doing similar work. ESP teachers find that it is hard to share ideas and discuss about designing the syllabus, choosing materials and using methodology. Without the teachers’ consolidation, the ESP courses cannot be done effectively (Pham, 2011).
The final list that ESP teachers comment is the lack of respect from students. We can see that most of ESP courses are conducted in accordance with content subjects and many workers who are working in this major also get ESP courses while ESP teachers do not have or have little knowledge about the subject. Thus, some of students have more knowledge of the content areas than ESP teachers.
This leads to the lack of respect of some unconscious students when ESP teachers cannot meet their needs for the subject knowledge. When ESP teachers know that their content knowledge is less than learners’ content knowledge, they feel unconfident.
In conclusion, recognizing the problems that teachers have to face during conducting an ESP course, such as: the lack of an ESP orthodoxy to provide a ready-made guide; the new realms of knowledge ( content knowledge) the ESP teacher has to cope with; and the change in the status of English Language Teaching is a necessary duty. This can help ESP teachers try to find suitable solutions to overcome and finish their duties in being a service industry for other specialism.
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