Teaching ESP in an Algerian context : a model based on the task-based syllabus

الملخص EN

This paper is an attempt to shed lights on the importance of the task-based syllabus in the planning of an ESP programme in ESP.

When students can communicate in real-life, we can deduce that they have acquired communicative competencies since communication is conventional.

This signifies that communication consists of the use of language in conventional ways.

In fact, communication is conventional, appropriate and interactional.

Appropriate, in the sense that it depends on factors such as, age, sex and the role of the speaker in a specific setting.

On the other hand, it is interactional since discourse is built up of words which indicate how what will be said can be related to what has been said before.

Moreover, it is necessary to think about activities and tasks that should be linked to real contexts.

In the classroom, spoken and written texts should not be dissociated from their contexts of production.

Therefore, the aim of the task-based syllabus is to stimulate language in use and create a suitable environment for learning.

Basically, this model can be very interesting if we concentrate more on the productive skills such as speaking and writing without of course neglecting grammar as such.

It is very important if we modify, delete or add other factors in order to make the syllabus more effective.

In the following, we will tackle some of the principles of applying a syllabus in English for Specific Purposes, and more particularly English for Science and technology, being aware that this can works in ESP, since students rely on statistics, tables and numbers.

Usually, we ask the students to transfer diagrams and charts into written texts, and these are tasks.

Tasks refer to the work we are supposed to do.

They can be the activities performed by the students in the classroom.

In the Algerian classroom, we have as teachers to ask the following question: Is it possible to bring the real world in a non native speaking community?