Developing Courses in English for Specific Purposes (review)

Building on her previous book on English for specific purposes (ESP) (Basturkmen, 2006), Developing Courses in English for Specific Purposes aims to provide an introduction to ESP course development for novice and experienced teachers and course designers that is ‘accessible as possible.’ The book explores ESP theory, but focuses particularly on practice, serving as an instructional guide in designing ESP courses through three central considerations in ESP: needs analysis, investigation of specialist discourse, and curriculum development.

Chapter 1 surveys a broad range of definitions in ESP and identifies common threads among them, while also classifying ESP’s many branches and sub-branches (e.g., English for academic purposes [EAP], English for occupational purposes [EOP], English for professional purposes [EPP]). Following the introductory chapter, the remainder of the book is divided into two parts: ‘Main Considerations in ESP Course Development’ (Part One) and ‘Case Studies in ESP Course Development’ (Part Two).

Basturkmen devotes three chapters to Part One. Chapter 2 explores the evolution and complexity of defining and determining needs analysis and processes involved in investigating specific learner needs. After explaining these processes, Basturkmen provides hypothetical scenarios in which student needs were inadequately evaluated. She also discusses sources of which teachers and course developers may take advantage, such as pre-existing needs analyses in the literature. In chapter 3, the author focuses on investigating specialist discourse, highlighting the importance of identifying specific target language, content, and discourses and outlines approaches and methods employed by previous ESP researchers and teachers. Chapter 4 considers the accumulation of needs analyses in relation to specific features associated with developing a curriculum, particularly the methods and features of wide- and narrow-angled course design and the use of authentic and non-authentic texts.

To provide illustrations of ESP course development, Part Two showcases four case studies of various ESP situations. In chapter 5, Basturkmen details a course specifically designed for international police officers in training in Auckland, New Zealand to help the trainees improve their writing and speaking skills. As an additional example of English in the workplace, chapter 6 illustrates a course developed for a group of experienced medical doctors in New Zealand who were in need of enhancing their verbal interactions in doctor– patient consultations.

Shifting from a workplace to an academic setting, chapter 7 depicts a case in which a classroom teacher examined disciplinary language and content in the development of a course for students majoring in visual communication studies. Finally, in chapter 8 Basturkmen outlines a course on thesis and dissertation writing, in which the course designer established a sequence of weekend workshops to meet the needs of graduate students from a broad range of academic disciplines. She ends the book by connecting the concepts discussed in Part One with the case studies in Part Two, pointing to the bi-directional effect of practice and theory.

Basturkmen’s book provides a nice balance of theory and practice for novice teachers and course developers, yet still supplies valuable information for experienced ESP practitioners. In particular, the detailed case studies presented in Part Two of the book are of particular value, taking the reader through the complex processes associated with and involved in the development and design of actual courses. Also, users of the book will find the discussion questions at the end of each chapter beneficial, as they provide opportunities to reflect on and go beyond what is presented in each chapter. While the book is an excellent resource in itself, we found one section in the concluding chapter a bit misplaced. In a piece focused primarily on pedagogy, it is unclear why Basturkmen decided to include an extremely brief section on future trends in research in the closing chapter. Perhaps the author’s intent was to make novice ESP practitioners aware of the field’s recent trend in recognizing the limitation of text-internal needs analysis alone, and that there is a committed need on the part of ESP researchers...