ESP TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMMES: ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURE, CONTENT AND IMPLEMENTATION PECULIARITIES

Abstract

The issue of pre-service ESP teacher training has been and still is topical in methodology of teaching English as a foreign language. Its solving is closely connected with implementation of the theoretically substantiated, practically elaborated and experimentally verified methodology of such training. The latter comprises designing the course «Methodology of Teaching ESP», which requires studying the positive international experience of designing and implementing of such programmes.

The purpose of the article is to analyse international ESP teacher training programmes from the point of view of their structure, content and implementation peculiarities and to specify the topics and issues which are to be included into the pre-service ESP teacher training programme.

Methodology. Achieving the purpose required applying such research methods as selection of international ESP teacher training programmes, analysis of their structure, content and implementation peculiarities, data systematization and generalization.

Scientific novelty. On the basis of international ESP teacher training programmes’ structure, content and implementation peculiarities analysis, topics and issues that are to be included into the pre-service ESP teacher training programme have been identified.

Conclusions. As a result of the research a number of international ESP teacher training programmes’ peculiarities have been singled out. The programmes under analysis are asynchronous and online. They are aimed at ESP practitioners and experienced ESP/EFL teachers. The duration of the course varies from one month to one year. The number of hours is given in the description of one course. It is 240 hours, which means 12 hours of a student’s self-study a week. According to the programme, students are expected to choose and successfully complete one of the offered courses in ESP. Most programmes focus on such issues as development and current trends in methodology of teaching ESP, students’ needs analysis, curriculum and ESP course design, teaching materials selection, evaluation and elaboration, methods, approaches and challenges in teaching ESP, strategies and techniques of students’ academic achievements assessment, ESP teacher roles and continuous professional development. These issues are to be included into the pre-service ESP teacher training programme.