Who is more qualified to teach ESP: English language teacher or content specialist teacher?

Abstract

With the appearance of ESP in 1960’s, its teaching and its qualified teacher have ever been controversial subject matters.

There are two categories of ESP teachers: English language teachers, who are familiar with the target language as a whole, and content specialist teachers, who are specifically familiar with the specialized words and texts whose reading and comprehension is the goal of most ESP courses in third world countries.  English language teachers feel their familiarity with teaching methods, grammar, functions, and the language as a whole gives them the teaching edge for ESP classes.  Content specialist teachers, however, feel their familiarity with the foreign country and its institutions (that might result from their studying there), the target language as well as its communicative fields will make them more qualified for ESP classes.

The present study aims to shed some light on the priority of any of the above mentioned teachers of ESP through reviewing the studies conducted in this regard.