Ensuring Equity in Language Teaching: Implementing English for Specific Purposes for Domain Specific Learners of Tertiary Level

Abstract

Teaching English language to the learners of different academic areas (multi-disciplinary or domain specific) of tertiary level with same general language planning and materials is an approach to ensure equality. On the other hand, teaching every particular group with specific goal-oriented and subject-related tailor made course is congruent with the concept of equity. English language teaching ought to be needs-based. Needs vary from one profession to another. Communicative skill of a lawyer is different from that of a scientist or an engineer. To ensure equity, teachers need to implement ESP, which has necessarily been introduced to meet the rising demand of the academic and professional learners. In ESP, to specify the learners’ needs (includes necessities, lacks and wants), intensive observation and research are carried out. In this practice, other subsequent steps like syllabus design, materials development, teaching and evaluation are also integrated. The same teacher does everything, so there is a wonderful harmony among the steps of language teaching. This paper shares the experience of a series of action research that were carried out to develop four ESP courses entitled Business English, English for Lawyers, English language for the students of Computer Science and Engineering and English
language for the students of the Health Science area on the basis of intensive needs analysis of 200 learners (50 students of health science area, 50 students of Computer Science and Engineering, 50 students of Business Administration and 50 students of Law) of tertiary level from both public and private universities of Bangladesh. This series of action research evaluates the prospect and effectiveness of ESP courses for ensuring equity among different groups of academic and professional learners.