The concept of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)is not an equivalent term with General English (GE) teaching and learning, buta kind of specialized English. After 1960sit has been flourished as an independent field. There are different conditionsof learning and teaching methods in ESP in the comparison with General English(GE) but the most prominent and noticeable distinction among ESP and GE is thelearners themselves and their aim of learning English. Commonly ESP learners are adults who arealmost familiar with the GE and want to learn English to be able to communicatein professional skills and to perform special profession related enterprises.
Thereforeit is the necessities and needs to be reached that determine the ESP coursedevelopment. The concentration of ESP is on the language in context rather thanteaching grammar and language structures. It involves different topics frommedical science or tourism to commerce or military. The ESP vital point is thatEnglish is not taught as a matter distinct from the learners’ real wants but itis accommodated to the area that is important to the learners. Anyway, thedifference between GE (General English) and ESP is not only the nature of thelearners, but also the aim of teaching. Indeed, in GE instruction, all four languageskills; listening, reading, speaking, and writing, are emphasized equally. Nonetheless,in ESP it is the needs analysis that determines which language skills are mostneeded for the learners, and based on necessities the syllabus is designed.
Forinstance, an ESP program might stress the improvement of writing skills in learnerswho are preparing for graduate work in Business Administration. An ESP coursemight develop the spoken skills in students who are studying English in orderto become tourist guides. ESP researchers and practitioners tend to know thedefinitions, history and development of ESP, the main features of ESP, theneeds evaluation process and so forth. They also need to know how to carry out aneffective needs analysis. They have to know these features to design ESP coursesand perform researches. English used for military purposes may be differentfrom English used in commerce purposes. The fundamental conceptual knowledge onESP structures is so unavoidable for ESP investigators or ESP specialists or learners.For this reason, the paper focuses on the history, development, and concept ofEnglish for Specific Purposes (ESP).
The paper also explains the notion ofneeds analysis, the components of needs analysis in ESP setting, targetsituation needs analysis, and some important theoreticalmodels of needs assessment that are the significant and fundamental features inthe field of ESP
