A Study On ESP Teachers' Teaching Strategies For Dealing With Subject Knowledge

ESP originated in the late 1960's. After comparing four definitions of ESP made by various scholars, it has been found that the two distinctive characteristics of ESP are an emphasis on learner's needs and carrier content. The so-called carrier content means subject knowledge related to a specific discipline. And there is a distinction between foreign and Chinese scholars'opinions about subject knowledge in ESP. Foreign scholars tend to emphasize ESP teacher's role as a language teacher and so it's unnecessary for him or her to master or acquire subject knowledge. Whereas, Chinese scholars tend to think ESP teacher should be equipped with subject knowledge to make sure ESP teaching is successfully conducted. Therefore, in Chinese higher education, when conducting ESP teaching to students knowing little about related subject knowledge, it is necessary for ESP teachers to deal with subject knowledge in class so as to achieve satisfying teaching effect. However, after reading related literature, it is found that, as for teaching strategies in ESP teaching practice, scholars both at home and abroad focus more attention on the research into the teaching strategies for fostering students'language skills and communicative competence and there is little research into ESP teaching strategies for dealing with subject knowledge. Therefore, the author conducted a empirical study on ESP teaching strategies for dealing with subject knowledge based on the ESP course Business English Reading offered by a university in Chongqing. By means of classroom observation, questionnaire surveys, structured interviews and semi-structured interviews, combined with the students'feedback, it is found that the ESP teachers adopted five kinds of strategies. Such strategies as vividness and visualization, intralingual and crosslingual strategy and teacher-student and student-student interactions are popular with students and can help students understand and master subject knowledge and, in turn, improve their comprehensive competence of English language use. And such strategies as stimulating students'initiative in learning and paying attention to linguistic knowledge are not popular with students. In addition, regarding the role ESP teachers play when they deal with subject knowledge, the teachers and students share the views that ESP teachers should be a knowledge imparter and a facilitator. But the students think the teachers should be a motivator, as well. This study is intended to provide reference for ESP teachers regarding teaching strategies for dealing with subject knowledge and to promote more balanced development in ESP teaching research.