Subject content is an important part of ESP courses. However, it is controversial how much subject content should be integrated into course content. This paper reviews the debate over specificity of ESP courses in three ESP development periods since 1960s. It will provide ESP practitioners, course writers and managers a theoretical overview to inform their teaching and researching practices. | VNU Journal of Science: Foreign Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 (2015) 37-45 Should an ESP Course be Specific or General? A Literature Review of the Specificity Debate Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã* Faculty of English, VNU University of Languages and International Studies, Phạm Văn Đồng, Cầu Giấy, Hà Nội, Vietnam Received 02 July 2015 Revised 06 October 2015; Accepted 08 October 2015 Abstract: Subject content is an important part of ESP courses. However, it is controversial how much subject content should be integrated into course content. This paper reviews the debate over specificity of ESP courses in three ESP development periods since 1960s. It will provide ESP practitioners, course writers and managers a theoretical overview to inform their teaching and researching practices. Keywords: Specificity, ESP, literature review, course development. 1. Introduction* The question of what content should be added is, however, controversial. Some authors [2] [3] argue that ESP courses should include specific content, . the specialized discourses of an academic or professional community. Other authors [4-7], on the contrary, favor generic language skills that are transferable among disciplines or professions. There is also a further group that holds a neutral view and supports both specialized discourses and generic language skills [8-10]. This debate, which has been evolving in parallel with broader ESP developments and has interested many scholars, incurs in both ESP as a whole and one of its branches, English for Academic Purpose (EAP), causing confusion for ESP practitioners. This paper will critically review the three positions of the specificity debate to highlight the development of the concepts. It As an English teaching approach, English for Specific Purpose (ESP) has been popularly perceived and depicted as “a radical, modern, more scientific departure from previous approaches” [1:1]. It emphasizes the importance of learners’ communication needs in a specific academic and .
