摘要：English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is teaching with the aim of assisting learners’study or research in the particular variety of English they may need. It has emergedfrom over 50 years of research and classroom practice and has become a majorinfluence in university and workplace classrooms in many parts of the world. Thebasic idea behind ESP is that learners’ needs differ enormously according to futureacademic or occupational goals, and this is why ESP has become so influential inuniversities around the world in recent years. There is a growing awareness thatstudents have to take on new roles and engage with knowledge in new ways whenthey enter university and, eventually the workplace. They find that they need towrite and read unfamiliar genres, and that communication practices are not uniformacross the subjects they encounter. Simply, the English they learnt at school rarelyprepares them for that which they need in Higher Education and in the world ofwork. In this paper I sketch some of the major ideas and practices that have shapedcontemporary ESP and look at the main effects it is having on language teaching.
