Meditation On Subject-based English Teaching

ESP (English for Specific Purposes) came into being in the 1960s as a result of the unprecedented expansion in economy after the Second World War. In recent years, ESP, as a practical approach, is drawing more and more attention both at home and abroad. And the SBE (subject-based English) course offered by China's tertiary institutions of science and engineering is a typical model of this approach. Actually, as early as more than two decades ago, China's institutions of higher learning began to offer this course and now according to the College English Syllabus, it is a compulsory course. However, ESP, as a whole, has not developed smoothly and has not been attached enough attention to by the educational authority of China.Also, in the field of SLT (Second Language Teaching), H. Douglas Brown puts forward twelve teaching principles which reflect the latest fruits in the field of SLT. And his notion of"teaching by principles"implies that SLT has entered into an open and rational era.On the basis of two authentic questionnaires, interviews, and class observations, the author finds out the present situation of the SBE teaching and the students'practical needs. Then the author meditates upon combining the reality with the ESP approach, the notion of teaching by the principles and the popular eclectic or integrated approach. Based on the ESP theory and the author's investigation, the author analyzes the needs of students of science and engineering. Besides, she picks four of the twelve principles to serve as the theoretical foundation for the meditation on SBE teaching and justifies their feasibility respectively.Because in view of the tendency of integration, Brown also proposes five commonly used models which are in line with the students'need to develop the four skills simultaneously, the author chooses three of the five models—Content-based Teaching, Theme-based Teaching, and Task-based Teaching for the SBE practitioners to use for reference in practice. What underlie the three models are just the four principles. The four principles and three models support and justify each other very well. And the three models are in answer to the students'actual needs.Finally, by integrating the three models, the author gives some suggestions on SBE teaching as regards the teaching methods, tasks in the textbook, cultivation of students'learning strategy,etc.