English literature had long played a central role in teaching English in Japan. In the last several decades, however, it has begun to lose popularity as more people study English for specific purposes (ESP). This trend of learning toward ESP in tertiary English education can make it difficult to justify the use of literary materials. In this presentation, I focus on the teachers who use literature and/or film in their ESP-oriented courses and investigate why these teachers use them in the contexts and what issues are in their minds.
The terms literature and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) are traditionally thought to be mutually exclusive and it seems difficult to find a link between them in language learning. However, Hirvela (1990) borrowed Widdowson's idea that 'the purposes of ESP are arranged along a scale of specificity with training at one end and education at the other' (1983, p. 10), and concluded that 'literature, if carefully selected and judiciously applied in accordance with the overall aims of ESP, can assist in the pursuit of the broader-based objectives in wide-angle ESP courses' (p. 243). Now, we recognise the possibility of using literature in teaching ESP.
I interviewed four teachers using a semi-structured approach. Teacher A used a simplified version of Oliver Sack's 'Awakenings' and its film adaptation for medical, nursing and pharmacy students. Teacher B used the film of Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day' in business English courses, and Teacher C used eight literary works in her seminar on leadership in the Department of International Economics. Teacher D occasionally incorporated picture books in his courses for science and engineering students.
By using an inductive thematic coding process to identify themes, which were repeated ideas or concepts, emerging from the transcripts, the study got five main themes: authenticity; personal growth; teachers' own engagement; language work; and difficulties of texts.
The results of the interviews indicated some important issues. First, teachers in this study believe in some benefits of using literature and film, even in their ESP-oriented classrooms. At the same time, some of them were aware of the difficulties in using them in second language teaching and tried to evade the problems. Second, the language skills that the teachers focused on were vocabulary and reading skills, though some appeared to emphasise other values of using literature more than promoting students' language skills. Last, if we claim the value of literature and film in language teaching, we must seek their use in various contexts, including such as ESP-oriented courses and other unexpected contexts.
