English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in Non-English Departments: Its Recurring Issues
Luluk Iswati
Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Jalan Brawijaya, Tamantirto, Kasihan, Bantul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Abstract
The shift from GE (General English) teaching to ESP (English for Specific Purposes) teaching in higher education has been deemed as a necessity for the teaching of English in non-English departments as the latter focuses on equipping learners with communicative language skills which are highly related to a certain field of study, future careers, and learners- specific needs. Although the decision to employ ESP program in non-English departments has indicated a clear direction towards the achievement of desired and specified learning outcomes, it cannot be denied that compared to other subjects which are closely related to the field of study, it still lacks attention from the stakeholders. This paper attempts to explore issues which revolve around the teaching of ESP in non-English departments. The data were gathered by interviewing five ESP teachers in non-English departments of three private universities and one state university in Yogyakarta. This qualitative study has yielded findings which become recurring issues concerning the practice of ESP in non-English departments, i.e. lack of needs analysis, lack of teachers- trainings, lack of specialty knowledge on the subject matter, large classes, and learners- varied competencies.
Keywords: ESP, recurring issues, non-English departments
Topic: International Conference of English Language Teaching, Literature & Linguistics