Graduate qualifying work

Figure n ° 3: The wide- and narrow-angled continuum (Basturkmen, 2010: 55)
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987) point of view the most important work done by ESP teachers is designing appropriate courses for various groups of learners. So, they (1987:21) argued that “whereas course design plays a relatively minor part in the life of the General English teacher – course here usually being determined either by tradition, choice of textbook or ministerial decree – for ESP teacher, course design is often a substantial and important part of the workload”, and they added that ESP course designing is “fundamentally a matter of asking questioning order to provide a reasoned basis for the subsequent processes of syllabus design, material writing, classroom teaching and evaluation”.
According to them questions should be asked by the ESP teacher are the following:

1. 
   Why does the student need to learn?
   
2. 
   Who is going to be involved in the process?
   
3. 
   Where is the learning to take place?
   
4. 
   What potential does the place provide?
   
5. 
   What limitation does the place impose?
   
6. 
   When is the learning to take place?
   
7. 
   How much time is available? How will it be distributed?
   
8. 
   What does the student need to learn? What aspects of language will be needed and how will they be described?
   
9. 
   What level of proficiency must be achieved?
   
10. 
    What topics areas will need to be covered?
    
11. 
    How will learning be achieved?
    
12. 
    What learning theory will underlie the course?
    
13. 
    What kind of methodology will be employed?
    

(Hutchinson and Waters 1987: 21-22)
They classified theses fundamental questions under three categories: Language Descriptions, Theories of Learning and Needs Analysis. Even though these three items look like separate entity, their interdependence in the syllabus design process is of greatest importance. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) show their relationship in the following manner:

Figure n° 4: Factors affecting ESP course design (Hutchinson and Waters 1987: 22).