11 - The British Juggernaut: ESP Practice and Purpose in the 1970s

Summary

Abstract

This chapter begins with a debate in the British Council publication ELT Documents in the late 1970s over English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and what Abbott termed TENOR (Teaching English for No Obvious Reason), which highlights tensions between the emerging field of applied linguistics and the practical experience of language teachers working in UK universities and overseas. Contemporary sources including academic articles, textbooks, and biographies document the influence of eight academics and EST lecturers on the development of ESP in the UK. Their work benefited from both unusually propitious circumstances and some quite remarkable individuals, exemplifying a useful cross-fertilization of academic research and teaching practice.

Keywords: English for specific purposes (ESP); English for Science and Technology (EST); materials writing; applied linguistics; British Council

The Practice-theory-gap

In language teaching, as in other fields of education, it is common to discuss a gap between theory and practice. On one hand we may ask how research findings can be made accessible to language teachers and integrated into curricula. On the other, we might wonder how what occurs in language classrooms and in the heads of language learners can best be accounted for by theories of language learning and teaching. The bridging of this gap is often viewed as a need to bring teaching into line with theory, which may be referred to as science, methodology, or research in different contexts at various times. However, as the grounded histories in the present volume show, the opposite approach, aligning theory with teaching practice, may in fact pay greater dividends. Cuban explains the theory-practice disconnect in terms of the sometimes wilful ignorance on the part of reformers of what he refers to as a ‘coral reef’ of prior developments:

Previous reforms create the historical context for the multi-layered curriculum and influence the direction of contemporary reforms. This historical context is like a coral, a mass of skeletons from millions of animals built up that, over time, accumulates into reefs above and below the sea line. Its presence cannot be ignored (n)either by ships (n)or by inhabitants.

Hence, for Cuban, the futility of tinkering with the “intended (or official) curriculum” which “rests atop” three other layers: the taught curriculum, which teachers deliver “once they close their classroom doors”, the learned curriculum or “what students take away from class”, and the tested curriculum, representing “an even narrower band of knowledge”.