ESP needs

As far as teaching students who are working, I'm terribly disappointed with the published materials for English for Special Purposes (ESP). Our school wanted to start several various ESP programs and we did a review of all the books available.

Cambridge's Information Technology ESP book, embarrassingly, has vocabulary including for "floppy disk". It is typical of many books on the market. (1) Out of date information. These books get old and are not updated. (2) Out of touch. IT people nearly always have a good technical vocabulary and perhaps to a lesser extent so do other professionals.

Of all the ESPs the biggest one and the one that attracts the most efforts of publishers is Business English. Even with Business English it is difficult to find material that is truly suitable for office workers.

I am about to start another year of teaching at an American logistics company that has centers in over 40 countries. Here is a typical Email that represents the type of English they need. This is written by one of my next students there:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Mr. Cao(ABC Co.), Polly(DEF Ltd.), Charles(GHI Inc.) and Daniel(JKL),

Greetings from Susan Lau, MNO Guangzhou.

Per PQ's e-mail below, I believe you already come into production the Holiday POPs. As you know, MNO need to repack and allocate the POPs to more than 400 RST Stores in Mainland China.

Usually, we will do the following when POPs ETA MNO:
- Combine some POPs to one carton to save packaging materials. (e.g. We usually put the Translite, Standee and Hanging Mobile into one Standee wrap)
- Ask some Temp. Helper on the POP allocation(to reduce Over Time Pay for
Workers)
- Catch Normal Routing Delivery to DCs, then from DC to Stores(to save delivery cost)
- 2 days repack in SUMS for 400+ stores

Therefore, we need your cooperation to deliver the POPs to MNO on or before Dec. 27, 2004. Otherwise, some POPs will be delivered by Express mail, this will bring on high delivery cost.

Any query or comments please feel free to call me or send me an E-mail.

Many thanks!

Susan Lau
Manager Trainee - MNO(GZ)

BERL Services (Guangzhou) Ltd.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most business people have difficulty with basic English. Students should probably focus on basic English until the upper-intermediate level. At that point the technical vocabulary they need is often particular to their specific type of business and their particular company and it is unlikely that a business book will even come close to it.

What is the solution? Something the publishers have no interest in giving us.

The ultimate ESP teacher tool would be a computer program that drove a flexible template based course generator. It would be strong on basic functions and notions and grammar practice (as is needed in the sample above) and allow teachers to easily insert the vocabulary and themes needed by the ESP teacher.

Photo: My student, a manager of a cold storage logistics company, visiting one of the top supermarkets in the city with me, learning and practicing her English about...well, cold storage.

Know your students, know your ESP

Mert Bland on developing English training for special purposes (ESP): "I always begin where the students are and work outward in a kind of spiral. Like, have each one describe what he does. Ask questions. Have him teach you what security and facilities maintenance are all about. He should know more than you."

Mert makes a good point here. It's very easy for the teacher to make wrong assumptions of what the students need. You should also ask your students for copies of their incoming and outgoing Emails so you can see what your students communicate about, what kind of language they use and what kind of errors they make. When I start a training I get 10 Emails from each student. I have collected thousands by now and have a pretty good insight into real business writing.

Many teachers think that the students need to expand their vocabulary in their professional field. However, I've found that professional vocabulary is one of the things they learn first while on the job and they are often more in need of improving their grammar to support their vocabulary. This is a big relief for the teacher who may not be conversant in their particularly technical field.

Lower level students will need more functional help, how to describe or plan certain actions; ie: planning the work schedule for security staff. Higher level students will not have much trouble with this but will need help in discussing concepts and ideas; ie: future trends in security and maintenance.

The best way to figure out what they need is, like Mert suggested, talk to them about their work. You could also ask for a tour of their facilities and this will give you lots of ideas of things to talk about with them or you can even help them learn how to do the tour in English.

One final thought is that in some cases it is best to not always fit the training too closely to their job. I was teaching Business English to some students from Caltex and found some Caltex materials and a video clip on the Internet. I formulated some lessons around this Caltex material which I thought would really hit the target of what the students need. I suppose it did but the students hated it. They told me they deal with Caltex stuff all week and they'd like to get their minds off work a bit when they studied English.

Business English or "Office English"

A teacher said: "I have been in business most of my life & found business letters from Australia, New Zealand, America & Canada were written in a fairly casual way. Letters from South Africa & Europe were more formal."

The vast majority of letters our students write will not be "letters" but rather Emails and they won't usually be sales letters or apology letters or late payment notification letters or any of those types of letters found in every “business writing” book, but will be what I call "office" letters. They will be reminding someone that the XYZ label needs to be applied to the front of the boxes or customer ABC wants to know what has happened to his order. This has been my experience after studying hundreds of company Emails.

The standard length of these communications is 55 words, about 3-5 sentences and very informal. This sort of writing will constitute about 90% of the writing in English with the rest being reports and presentations. (I’ll include 30 writing samples from one company below.)
Writing constitutes about 90% of their communications in English. About 8% will be speaking on the phone and only about 2% will be face-to-face.

Typically, a professional will already have a firm grasp of the primary language for his profession. He will be very familiar with the technical terms. However, he will be making grammar errors or errors with other vocabulary not directly related to the profession. Sometimes the company, as P&G and others companies, will have their own company lingo, a vocabulary only used in their company. In this case, some students need to learn some more general words that the rest of the world uses. For example, P&G never has any "problems". However, they certainly have some "issues" that need to be dealt with.

The ESP (English for Special Purposes, like English for Manufacturing or English for Information Technology) does not need to teach these special words to professionals but does need to help the student learn how to use them properly in sentences.

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30 Samples:

=======================EMAIL 1:
Kindly to inform you that Z H has invited S T to be the speaker of OOC touch point seminar.
The seminar will be held on July 27 evening ( Pls see the attachment for the detail rundown).
On Z H’s introduction, S T is a very very good speaker and he can speak fluent mandarin too. He is a world class speaker.
We think it’s maybe a good opportunity for agency promotion, we wonder whether you need to invite him too?
If yes, we should inform R B the schedule today.
Your reply today will be highly appreciated!

=======================EMAIL 2
The under insured’s leaflet has finish it’s final design, I’ve submit to L for her comment.
I’ll attend HR training this two days, A will forward the confirmed design to you ASAP.
Anything urgent pls contact A or G.
Thank you!

=======================EMAIL 3
Dear all:Kindly to remind you that as GZ's inactive orphan policy lead size is not so sufficient. GZ have 2 selection criterias: 1. For the target customers who is inactive for 5 years(the same as SH), 2. For the target customers who is inactive for 3 years. Thank you for your attention.

=======================EMAIL 4
Kindly be informed that the marketing plan of Under Insured campaign has been approved by our GM, I’ve fax the hardcopy to you, pls check it.
As the time is very tight, can we finish the whole approval circle in two weeks?
Thank you very much!

=======================EMAIL 5
Considering the under insured campaign is LG channel, to give more information and motivation to our agent, I modified the tracking report: 1. Add a new report named: billboard 2. Modify the agent score card( for team) I've discuss with B, he has agreed with the revise.
Thank you!

=======================EMAIL 6
Many thanks for your kindest support to make it happen! We strongly believe that Mr. A T is the right person for our seminar. Your continuous support is the key of our success!

=======================EMAIL 7
Dear both,
D has already invited a guest speaker from HK agency. He is called A T ( Senior District Director).
well, he is a very very good speaker and he can speak fluent mandarin too. He is a world class speaker, so u guys need not worry his ability :)
Kind regards,

=======================EMAIL 8
I’ve double checked these cost items, and they are all right. Furthermore, I’ve mastered how to use correlative forms, and I’ll ask Y’s help when I have other questions.

=======================EMAIL 9
There is the final version wording of “NML Campaign” we prepared in the attachment, please help to check whether it is ready to apply for approval program.

=======================EMAIL 10
To conduct the campaign better and more conveniently, we prepared three “Production Tracking Reports” for agencies, and we’ll update them every two weeks from now on; Furthermore, because the data in today’s reports just update to June 1st- when our campaign have only launched for ten days, so some items just for your reference. If there are some questions or proposals about these reports, you can contact us further.

=======================EMAIL 11
Attached the wording of “Coupon Recapture Campaign” and the “TWN brochure” for your references, please help to design it according to our discussion just now. Thank you so much.

=======================EMAIL 12
I am A -member of “Direct Distribution Department”, unfortunately, I have to deal with some affairs in my family, which make me can’t take part in the Birthday Party at “Q.” Club. Best wishes to other folks sincerely.

=======================EMAIL 13
Because the “Performance Report0615” is compared with “control group”, so we submitted the figure excluding the data relating to “control group” at the first time, that made the data in this form was not match to the other ones. We revise it correspondingly, and we will submit the “total leads group data” from now on. Pls kindly find the latest reports in the attachment.

=======================EMAIL 14
We wonder whether S Branch has executed some campaign about “Cease Policy”, if yes, pls kindly e-mail the correlative campaign materials to us. Thank you so much.

=======================EMAIL 15
Attached the final-edition design of leaflets for GZ under insured campaign, please kindly help to follow up the CHO’S approval. Furthermore, because we have much trivial work about the leaflets to do before 1st August, such as printing, so the feedback given before 14th July is so appreciated. Thank you very much.

=======================EMAIL 16
According to last Friday conference’s decision, we will have a further discussion about “PIF” of correlative products. Next Monday or Tuesday (7.3/7.4) is fine with OOC, wonder whether you are also available. If not, please kindly inform us what time is the most reasonable in your opinion.

=======================EMAIL 17
Because GZ should also submit correlative performance reports about “Birthday4 Campaign” to GZ Agency Office tomorrow, so I want to conform whether we will receive the tracking reports today. Thank you very much.

=======================EMAIL 18
Dear all,For this urgency, I should inform you to attend the tele-conference for the SDM Phase II launch failure on this Wednesday.Time: 14:30 -16:30 on the 12th Jul, 2006 (Wed)Conference Number: (83xxxxxx)

=======================EMAIL 19
Thanks for your helping to generate this TIPS report everyday by manual! But would you pls send this report everyday before 10:30 am, otherwise, the data would be delayed one day. BTW, when would you set up the system to send out the auto pay failure report for renewal case automatically?

=======================EMAIL 20
Per tele-conference between Call Center and SDM today morning, according to TM team's request in order to improve the first time auto-pay success rate, SDM operator will postpone the submitted time of FPA & ROPADD Application Form for one day from now on. Thus, all the AF is submitted in today from CT call center will be transferred to A/C by tomorrow noon.

=======================EMAIL 21
According to call center's work station request, 30 for A one month and 35 for H cash tow month. Seen from the below w/s arrangement, there is 23 gap in first half of Oct and 53 gap in second half from 88 total w/s that requested by call center in Oct. Thus, the 23 and 88 would be out of our marketing cost budget. How to cover this?

=======================EMAIL 22
I want to issue one problem is that the OT hours in Oct is more than before month, according to local "劳动法"(labor rule), it is need to control the OT under 36 hours for individual OT hour, but there are around 40 TSR are above that. Is it any other item has been included in the "OT" field? Another, compared with OOC, their average OT hour is only 8 hours.

=======================EMAIL 23
According to the incentive balance, the negative need to be covered by the next coming campaigns. Pls give us the projection and incentive scheme based on the overused incentive. For the pilot campaigns, the negative is 48,980 and 7,887 for rollout by Jan 25. Details see below file.

=======================EMAIL 24
According to your projection, only the TM cost has already achieved 66% of the TARP, it is more higher than 30% of ROPADD benchmark. Would pls let us have a discussion for it this afternoon!

=======================EMAIL 25
DearsPer discussion this morning, it is suppose the TYPA period equal to actual campaign end date plus 1 week since the new flow of TYPA, so the period set up 4 weeks because the campaign period is 3 weeks from your information before in telephone. For the printing is doing, so the period would not be changed. Pls note!

=======================EMAIL 26
The captioned product plan to promote on touch point--Customer Event. China have many Festival, we could cash in on the public holiday to cross/up sell the product via TM campaign. FPA's premium rate is too higher for OOC selected target customers and a few commission rate is preferred for OOC product too.
Thanks for your kindest support.

=======================EMAIL 27
Are you planning to promote this product in which touch point or any current campaigns?

=======================EMAIL 28
Attached pls find the PRF of Ever Festival PA 2 for OOC.
The product idea comes from EF(Sponsor channel), there are some differences in benefit and premium rate, pls find the details in attachment.
The target launch date was set at the end of August 2006.
Should there has any question, pls feel free to contact me.

=======================EMAIL 29
Local account need us provide a new monthly breakdown on the new budget. GZ and Agency's production are over adjust, let's have a brainstorming to add new campaign on this afternoon 2pm to 2:30pm? Pls kindly confirm your availability. Thanks.

=======================EMAIL 30
Could you provide a monthly breakdown for the updated budget? We need to input into the system by month. Thank you very much!

Why we don't need to teach specialized vocabulary

One teacher wrote: "I was lucky to hear a lecture by Paul Nation and he said we all have a different vocab. It's very hard/impossible to test over 6-9000 words cos we all specialize. Law majors should know legal words, another should know about culture, IT in digital stuff etc. So how do you test that fairly?"

But let's take a step back and ask ourselves an interesting question, Why test it?

All of my students who are professionals (managers, department heads, engineers) have no problem with the vocabulary of their profession yet they don't seem to have actually "studied" it. Their professional vocabulary is actually stronger than their general vocabulary. This is most noticeable in the IT field but happens in all professions. Logistics people know all about "bill of lading", "supply chain management" and "port of entry". Accountants know all about "accounts receivable" and "double entry ledgers".

In the extreme I call this McEnglish. If you go to a McDonald's in any country they can usually take your order in English without too much trouble. However, if you ask them if they think it is going to rain today they are totally lost.

So I'm wondering how necessary it is to worry about teaching professional vocabulary. People will learn it naturally in an Extensive Reading or Comprehensible Input sort of way in their work. If they are already working then they seem to already know it.

However, they are often weak in the grammar around that vocabulary. "It come to a new port of entry" type of thing or "Supply chain management is a big important to our company."