Teaching English for specific purposes in courses of tertiary education in Brazil

a critic perspective

Abstract

English for Specific Purposes emerged worldwide as a result of demands for communication in English in professional, occupational and academic environments and has consolidated as a subfield in Applied Linguistics. In Brazil, in the seventies, became better known as Inglês Instrumental, a curricular subject present in several higher education courses in which the syllabus aims reading. However, the students from universities more located in the countryside of the country may lack language skills for the complex process of reading in a foreign language. In this article, we summarize the development path of the specific purposes approach in the world and in the country,  and allude to a practice mingled with General English teaching, since the level of specificity of a course can be contestable issue when establishing and differentiating the objectives of both approaches. With the purpose of trying to diminish possible students’ shortcomings in English, we also advocate for a critical needs analyses taking into consideration the learner’s language developments, learning needs and wishes.