ESP

ESP could be easily defined as English for Specific Purposes; nevertheless, when it comes to teaching this field is not exactly as easy as to teach specific vocabulary for a particular subject. That’s what dictionaries are for; furthermore, the students interested in this field usually know more technical vocabulary than the teacher himself. For this reason is necessary to consider that the most relevant situation is that they are //not// native speakers, and so they will have more trouble getting the structure right when speaking and writing. Listening might be a problem as well, but it’s going to depend on the level that the student has. One way to help improve their skills is to show them how to model natives. Using real material such as faxes, letters or even conferences is going to be a plus to achieve success. Don’t trust your intuition or previous learning since it may differ from the real world. English is a living language that is always evolving and what you might have learned a few years ago may not apply to today’s use. One of the greatest tools we have nowadays is Internet. If you want to keep yourself up-to-date, this tool is the fastest one to do so; however, beware that not everything you find there is reliable. Learning to select the correct information could be difficult, but once you learn which pages can be trusted or not, you can take advantage of this. In sum, having a selective criteria and using your intuition tactfully, you will be able to teach ESP appropriately, and more important, usefully.