On finding an appropriate approach to ESAP teaching.

One of the fundamental aspects of an ESAP course was believed to be how specific the course content was with respect to the academic discipline it was attached to and that this aspect of specificity was a determining factor in course design and content ( Hyland 2006:9-12). This paper will present the argument that particular socio-educational factors in the 21st century are impinging upon methodologies, course design and classroom activities to such an extent that the specificity of ESAP courses is often seriously undermined, or impossible to identify. Educational contexts are constantly changing and as curricular decisions are “underpinned by a sensitivity to the contexts of teaching” (Hyland 2006:30), there is today, a greater need for pragmatism and flexibility on the part of the ESAP practitioner than ever before. The ESAP practitioner needs to construct context-specific frameworks which allow him or her to select and combine compatible teaching procedures and materials for the local teaching context. The paper argues for a new approach to ESAP course design and practices, which the author has called ‘Parallel ESAP Courses’. The Parallel Course allows the ESAP practitioner to choose materials which reflect and follow the discipline-specific content, and design tasks which focus on the lexico-grammatical and textual features typically found in the discipline’s discourses. The paper will set out the arguments for and description of Parallel ESAP courses in order to show how, in this rapidly changing world, ESAP practitioners can “become increasingly responsive to the complexities of institutions, teaching, and learning in local contexts” (Benesch 2001:4)