LSP curriculum development: from theory to practice. A case study

Abstract

A Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) course is one in which the methodology, content, objectives, materials, teaching and assessment practices all derive from the specific use of a target language based on a specified set of professional needs. Developing an LSP curriculum involves a very similar process to any other language course, because it should be systematic and defensible, and should start by understanding the needs of the students taking the course. Furthermore, the current trend seems to be moving towards a process of internationalization in most regions, whereby ‘internationalization’ is often understood by stakeholders as ‘English’. By providing practical examples, and based on a self-ethnomethodological approach, this paper tries to describe the process we used to create an LSP syllabus as a curriculum for an MA in tourism planning and management, where English is the language of instruction. While the theoretical approach to curriculum development is linear, the reality is much more complex: though curriculum development and syllabus creation are intrinsically linked to needs analysis to such an extent that without a needs analysis they cannot be planned, there are cases where a needs analysis cannot be done because similar curricula or syllabi do not exist. Then, the LSP teacher must resort to what has been defined as a needs analysis on the run while adopting an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to curriculum development. In this process, students play an active role and promote their interest with the teacher who could thus adjust and implement the envisaged educational goals. The hope is to provide teachers and curriculum developers with the information and tools they may need to design and create their own LSP courses.