Hello everybody. I'm really in terrible need. I'm an English teacher in Spain and I'm in charge of teaching English to a ESP group (English for Specific Purposes).
The topics to deal with, as well as vocabulary, grammar and, of course, the skills, go around health, medicine, hospitals, emergency, etc. It is a subject in a course called "Health Emergencies" addressed to 112 workers or ambulance drivers, among others.
My problem is that the competence on the English language of most of them is really low or non-existing. However, there are a few who can follow the lesson and their competence is pre-intermediate (let's say so). So the situation is that I have to teach them ESP but I cannot invest time teaching them basic grammar, basic reading, speaking or writing techniques. What can I do? I've been teaching secondary education students for 6 years, but it's my first time with ESP. Any tips? Advice? Suggestions? A guideline would be great! (I don't want to look desperate at all).
Thank you very much in advance!
Lázaro García
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version
Log in or register
Follow TeachingEnglish
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dear Lazaro
This is Saba, from Pakistan. I have been teaching ESP & EAP courses at University level for over 7 years now. Most of my students are intermediate level or above. I'm sharing some pointers which you could try:
a) If you have some flexibilty in the course design or at least course material selection, you could carry out a basic needs analysis by having a look at situations where the participants might need to use English. Or if the course is already specified you could use videos in english available of the situations which need to be taught to the students. In some videos you could provide subtitles and later