English language education for specific professional needs

One newcomer to English language education, with research beginning in the 1960s, is English for Specific Purposes (ESP), a discipline that has experienced remarkable growth in the last 20 years in numbers of specialists, programs, and publications as well as in quality of research and education. ESP is English language instruction designed to meet the specific learning needs of a specific learner or group of learners within a specific time frame for which instruction in general English will not suffice, Most often, this instruction involves orientation to specific spoken and written English, usually unfamiliar to the average speaker, which is required to carry out specific academic or workplace tasks. The paper discusses learner needs analysis and course design.