ESP

When I started this course I didn´t have any idea about the meaning of ESP. I even thought they were the initial letters of ESPañol. Of course, it is not. Although I have been taught ESP before, I didn´t know the concept. I have been in England recently, in a British University. I needed to write some articles and proposals for conferences, and I discovered that I did not have any idea about how to write an academic paper in philosophy. There was a subject called Academic Writing. It was a new world for me. There were lists of connectives, and words, and things like that. It was intended for foreign students in Humanities. It was interesting but there was a lot of stuff of no interest for me. Much information about sociological or psychological studies and research, but little one about how to develop a good argument. After reading the article I have realised I was learning ESP. So, what is ESP? If I have understood it, it is a recent development of the education in English. There is more and more people who have different needs of English in their different jobs. It is not the same to teach English for a nurse than to explain the way of writing a philosophical paper. The development of this discipline is interesting, because, like the author, I have done that same trip by myself, even I do not teach. At the beginning of my research, I thought I will be able to write philosophy in English If I was able to master the vocabulary, but this is just a little part. I need the connectives, I need to know what is the use of English in contemporary research, and, over all, I need to understand why it is so. I am not sure there is a difference between GE and ESP. The easy answer it is to consider the traditionally taught English in Language Schools as General, in contraposition to this specific English. But, What if General English is just a kind of ESP, and the specific purpose in this case was tourism. If you check GE books, the main subject is travelling, eating, asking for directions. Once upon a time people travelled just for tourism, and they learned English for tourism and this was called General English. As time passed English became the language of research, of culture, of business and the learning needs changed. I have found these acronyms in the text. ESOL: English to speakers of other languages. ESL/EFL: English as a Second Language/ English as a Foreign Language. M. A.: Master degree VIP: Very Important People.