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English for specific purposes approach provides insights about English courses which were constructed in consideration of the students’ occupations. ESP

researchers made a distinction between the role of English as a medium of

communication in business, government and education and its more restricted role as a subject on the school curriculum focusing on grammar structures and as a medium providing access to technology and science (Kennedy and Bolitho, 1990:12).

Traditionally the aim of linguistics had been to describe the rules of English usage, that is, the grammar. However, advocates of ESP claim that the approach shifts attention away from ‘defining the formal features of language usage to discovering

the ways in which language is actually used in real communication (Hutchinson and Waters, 1992: 8). The new view about English as a tool for communication gained ground when most students claimed that they needed English in order to function in their specialist areas of work or study.

Similar research on the understanding why students chose to study English was conducted in the United States after the Second World War in 1945 due to the expansion especially in the economic power. During that period interest in learning English was rising. Most people wanted to learn English not for the pleasure of knowing the language, but because the language was perceived as the key to participation in the economy and the general business sector (Hutchinson and Waters, 1992). According to Hutchinson and Waters (1992: 6), a new generation of students knew specifically why they wanted to learn the language. For instance, ‘business people wanted to sell their products and they needed to communicate

effectively at sales conferences or to get the necessary information from the sales catalogues, mechanics wanted to read instruction manuals, doctors needed to keep up with developments in their field’. The English language became subject to the

wishes, needs and demands of people other than what the teachers in the schools required. ESP was not defined as ‘specialized varieties of English, or as a matter of

Science words and grammar for Scientists or Hotel words, but it was seen as an approach guided by the target situation, but its specific content responsive to learning needs and not a product which is concerned with knowing or doing’

(Hutchinson and Waters, 1992:70). The approach differed from the skills-centred approaches which are concerned with the processes of language use and therefore view the student as a user of language rather than focusing on processes of

language learning. ESP was understood as an approach to language learning in which all decisions as to content and methods of teaching were based on the

students’ language of learning. Its design aimed to respond to the following question:

need was determined by the demands of the target situation, that is, what students had to know in order to function effectively in the target situation (Hutchinson and Waters, 1992: 19).

In English language teaching it was realised that the spoken and written language varied considerably from one context to another. That gave rise to the view that there are differences between, say, the English of commerce and that of engineering. This idea led to an emergence of the development of English courses for specific groups of learners. The argument then was, if language varies from one situation of use to another, it should be possible to determine the features of specific situations and then make the features the basis of the students’ English course (Hutchinson and

Waters, 1992: 7). The aim was to design English courses that would empower students to function adequately in a target situation, that is, the situation in which they would use the language they are learning.

New developments in educational psychology also contributed to the rise of ESP (Hutchinson and Waters, 1992: 7). Educational psychology emphasized the

importance of the learner and attitudes to learning, and learners were therefore seen as having different needs and interests which have an influence on their motivation to learn and on the effectiveness of their learning. These needs encouraged support to the development of courses in which ‘relevance to the students’ needs and

interest’ was of importance. Texts from specialist areas like Biology were selected for

inclusion in the curriculum design with an assumption that such an English course with clear relevance to the students’ need would improve their motivation and

about by a combination of factors: the expansion of demand for English to suit particular needs and developments in the fields of linguistics and educational psychology.

The debates about English for specific purposes shows links with the vocational education and training sector in that the approach is considerate of the students’

contextual needs. The curriculum design is guided by what the students consider as relevant to their interests and workplace needs which guides what the curriculum designers select for inclusion in its design. English is also regarded locally and internationally as a language that enhances academic success. In most South African educational institutions English is the language of teaching and learning. Most, if not all, the material used to read for courses are written in English. The students need to develop their language proficiency sufficiently to enable them to undertake studies at different levels of learning and to be able to function adequately in the language. The next section outlines debates about the role of English for academic success.