DEVELOPMENT LEARNING MATERIAL ESP 

 

Fadhliyah RM 

Mahasiswa Pascasarjana Universitas Negeri Jogyakarta 

 

 
Abstract:  One of the aspects of teaching ESP is development materials. ESP 

teaching should be linked to a specific discipline, make use of methodology 

that differs from that used in English for General Purpose teaching. They 

assert that it is essential that an ESP course take into consideration register, 

genres and associated language that students need to understand and to 

manipulated in order to carry out activities related to their disciplines. 

 

Key Words: ESP, Development Learning, Material 
 

 

ESP is generally defined as a language teaching area requiring careful research 

and design of pedagogical materials and activities for indentifiable group of learners 

within specific learning context ( Dudley-Evans, 1998: 298). ESP teaching should 

be linked to a specific discipline, make use of methodology that differs from that 

used in English for General Purpose teaching. They assert that it is essential that an  

ESP course take into consideration register, genres and associated language that 

students need to understand and to manipulated in order to carry out activities 

related to their disciplines. 

Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998: 4) believe that a definition of ESP should 

reflect the fact that much ESP teaching, especially where they are specifically linked 

to a particular profession or discipline, make use of a methodology that differs from 

that used in General Purpose English teaching. They also define ESP by using 

absolute and variable characteristic as follows: 

1) Absolute Characteristic 
   a). ESP is designed to meet specific needs of learner. 

b). ESP make use of the underlying methodology and activities of the 

disciplines it serves. 

c). ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, register); skills, 

discourse and genres appropriate to these activities. 

2) Variable Characteristic 
 a). ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines 

b). ESP may use, in specific teaching situation, a different 

methodology from that of general English. 

c). ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary 

level institution or a professional work situation. It could, however, 

be used for learners at secondary school level. 

d). ESP generally designed for intermediate or advanced students. 

Most ESP course assume basic knowledge of the language system, 

but it can be used with beginners. 

 

 



MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT 

 

Learning materials form an important part of most English teaching 

programmes. Materials mean anything which is used to help to teach language 

learners. It is the source which can be used in teaching and learning process. 

Materials can be in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-ROOM, a 

video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard or 

anything which presents or informs about the language being learned (Tomlinson, 

1998: xi). 

Tomlinson (1998:7) gives some basic principles of good English learning 

materials as stated below. 

1. Materials should achieve impact. 
Impact is achieved when materials have a noticeable effect, on 

learners, that is when the learners’ curiosity, interest and attention are 

attracted. Materials can achieve impact through: 

a. Novelty (e.g. unusual topics, illustrations and activities) 
b. Variety (e.g. breaking up the monotony of a unit routine with an 

unexpected activity; using many different types of sources: using a 

number of different instructor voices on cassette); 

c. Attractive presentation (e.g. use of attractive colours; lots of white 
space; use of photographs); 

d. Appealing content (e.g. topics of interest to the target learners; 
topics which offer the possibility of learning something new; 

engaging stories; universal themes; local references). 

2. Materials should help learners to feel at case. 

Materials should help learners to feel at case in a number of ways. 

For example: 

a. Feel more comfortable with lots of white space than they do with 
materials in which lots off different activities 

b. Are more at case with texts and illustrations that they can relate to 
their own culture than they are with those which are culturally 

exotic (and therefore potentially alien); 

c. Are more relaxed with materials which are obviously trying to help 
them to learn than they are with materials which are always testing 

them. 

3. Materials should help learners to develop confidence. 

Relaxed and self-confident learners learn faster (Dulay, Burt and 

Krashen,1982). 

4. Learners should perceive what is being taught as relevant and useful. 

In ESP materials it is relatively teaching points are relevant and 

useful by relating them to know learner interests and to ‘real-life’ tasks 

which the learners need or might need to perform in the target language. 

5. Materials should require and facilitate learners’ self-investment. 



6. Learners must be ready to acquire the points being taught. 
7. Materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use. 
8. The learner’s attention should be drawn to language in authentic use. 
9. Materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the 

target language to achieve communicative purposes. 

10. Materials should take into account their the positive effects of 
instruction are usually delayed 

11. Materials should take into account that learners are different in 
learning styles and effective attitudes  

12. Materials should permit a silent period at the beggining of instruction 
13. Materials should maximize learning potential by encouraging 

intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional involvement, which stimulates 

both right and left brain activities 

14. Materials should not rely too much on controlled practice 
15. Materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback 

 

MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT PROCEDURES IN ESP 

 

The application of procedures of developing materials is described focusing 

on materials development for specific purposes of the teaching of English. In order 

to develop learning materials for specific purposes, one thing that should become the 

starting point is the learners’ needs. Developing materials must begin with a need 

analysis in the context of ESP, determining course content,  devising materials. 

 

1.  Needs analysis 

Needs analysis for ESP course refers to the identification of language and 

skills is used in determining and refining the content for the course. The ESP 

teacher or course developers needed to conduct needs analysis process. The needs 

analysis process  (Basturkmen, 2010: 19) involves: 

1. Target situation analysis: Identification of tasks, activities and skills 

learners are using English for; what the learners should ideally know and be able 

to do. 

2. Discourse analysis: Descriptions of the language used in the above. 
3. Present situation analysis: Identification of what the learners do and 

do not know and can or cannot do in relation to the demands of the 

target situation. 

4. Learner factor analysis: Identification of learner factors such as their 
motivation, how they learn and their perceptions of their needs. 

5. Teaching context analysis: Identification of factors related to the 
environment in which the course will run. Consideration of what 

realistically the ESP course and teacher can offer. 

Needs analysis can take a number of forms including 

questionnaires, interviews, observations of interactions and analysis of 

language use in the target situation. Questionnaires and interviews allow 

the needs analyst to explore people’s opinions of needs, difficulties and 

the importance of language skills and areas.  

 



2.  Determining course content and writing planning syllabus 

After doing needs analysis, they are determining course content. Needs 

analysis plays an important role in determining course content in ESP. In ESP, 

course content includes real content and carrier content. Real content relates to 

pedagogical aims such as the features of language learner will become more aware 

of or be better able to produce or the language skills they gain control of. Carrier 

content refers to the means of delivering the real content. These means include the 

use of texts or activities (Basturkmen, 2010: 59). 

Analysing the needs analysis will help in planning syllabus. In the planning 

syllabus, teachers/course developers make decisions about what to include in terms 

of: 

1. Types of units; such as skills, vocabulary, genres, functions, notions, 
and disciplinary, professional or cultural content. 

2. Items in the units; such as genres, semantic sets and functions 
3. Sequencing: it is what should come first, second and so forth and 

decisions made according to considerations; such as immediate and 

less immediate need, level of difficulty with easier items before more 

difficult items and logical flow. 

3.  Developing materials and making task 

In ESP, teacher or course developers select and devise authentic texts as well 

devise task. Materials development in ESP, Harding in Basturkmen (2010: 63) 

proposed three states as stated below. 

1) Use contexts, text and situations from the students’ subject area. 
Whether they are real or simulated, they will naturally involve the 

language the students need. 

2) Exploit authentic materials that students use in their specialism 
and do not be put off by the fact that it may not look like “normal 

English”. 

3) Make the tasks authentic as well as the texts. Get the students 
doing things with the material that they actually need to do in 

their work. 

4.   Evaluating course and materials 

The teacher or developers materials need to know how effective the course 

is. Information gained from this evaluation is a useful source of data about the 

effectiveness of a course. Evaluation tries to answer the question, “is this a good 

course?”the range of meanings that can be attached to “good” depends on who is 

doing the evaluating (the teacher, the learners, the owner of the school, the parents, 

the course designer) and determines what sources of information are used to carry 

out an evaluation. 

An evaluation of a course can have many purposes, the main ones being to 

assess whether to continue or discontinue the course or to bring about improvements 

in the course. 

 

     

 

 

 



CONCLUSION 

 

  To sum up, In KPI department, it did needs analysis to find out about the 

target situation ( the courses the students would be studying, the assignments and the 

speaking and writing situations they would face). After analyzing the needs analysis, 

it is essential to determine course content. After that, the next step is devising 

authentic materials. Selecting authentic texts and producing the created materials 

consisted of comprehensive activities on written texts on communication and 

broadcasting-related topics is important to do. For example, the texts can come from 

literature, from songs, newspapers and magazine, from television programmes and 

from films. Those texts should be selected based on the principles of language 

learning points and related to the interests of the students in terms of communication 

and broadcasting-related topics. They should be in line with target learners. Finally, 

in order to assess the effectiveness of course, a questionnaire and interviews are 

developed to assess theri response to the course and learning from it. 

 

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