Challenges Facing The Esp Practitioner

The ESP teacher has to face certain challenges in his profession: One of the biggest challenges of the ESP teacher is the fact that he/she lacks the necessary knowledge of the subject to teach Business English, for instance, some researchers believing that such courses should be taught by subject teachers. The task of teaching ESP by ESL teachers is not an easy one. Dudley- Evans and St. John pointed out its complexity, identifying five key roles of the ESP practitioner: teacher, course designer and materials provider, collaborator, researcher and evaluator and this is probably the biggest challenge of the profession. The ESP practitioner has also to be aware of the fact that using a foreign language for workplace or study purposes requires not only linguistic proficiency and knowledge but also knowledge of work –related and disciplinary concepts.Last but not least, another challenge for the ESP practitioner is the use of technology in class, a valuable tool for helping with traditional forms of teaching and for creating new forms of communicating.Thus, the ESP practitioner has many things in common with the teacher of general English: he has to be familiar with linguistic development and teaching theories ,he has to be aware of contemporary ideas related to his position and role and he has to become familiar with the new technologies which can be used to improve his methodology.However,his role is more complex than that of a General English teacher.