A Research On Teaching English For Special Purposes (ESP) To Undergraduates Of Non-English Majors

The study attempts to prove the necessity of bettering today's ESP syllabus with a new one, give suggestions about teaching strategies and provide a sample unit for textbook compiling.The western linguists have contributed greatly to origins of English for Special Purposes (ESP), given definitions in both narrow and broader sense and identified specific subdivisions. However, the Chinese context has its own particular features for ESP teaching and appeals for an updated teaching syllabus, teaching strategies and teaching materials.The research is designed in the form of deduction. The ESP syllabus, issued by China University of Geosciences(CUGB), is taken as the example of the current ESP teaching target to be tested. Questionnaires to collect opinions towards the current ESP teaching are designed for the ESP learners from CUGB as well as the other four universities in Beijing. If the syllabus cannot meet the needs of its own interviewees and more respondents from the rest four universities agree with their points of view, the current syllabus of CUGB is proven to be out of date.According to the investigation, ESP learners hope to get out from the earlier formed stereotypes of concentration on reading and indicate that listening and speaking should become the cores in ESP courses. Therefore, updating syllabus together with textbooks and employing communicative teaching strategies will boost learners' confidence and courage, which might help to improve ESP teaching quality.The significance of the this study is to arouse the attention of ESP decision makers who are usually the curriculum developers by providing syllabus analysis, methodology study and textbook design.