Esp teacher’s Transforming Profile

ESP Teacher’s Transforming Profile
Popovska Solzica+ and Pirsl Danica++
+Ss Cyril and Methodius University , “Blaze Koneski”-Skopje, Bul. Goce Delcev, 9, 1000 Skopje, Republic of
Macedonia Phone: (++)38978303555, E-mail: [e-mail]

++ University of Nish, Faculty of Philology, Faculty of Sport, Charnojevica, 10a, 18000 Nish , Republic of Serbia, Phone [phone], E-mail: [e-mail]

Abstract: Being special in every way, ESP also requires special teacher’s profile. Yet, rare are institutions that offer training for this specific academic subject, and hence we find it important to give a contribution to this aspect of ESP by outlining an ESP teacher’s profile with the most important characteristics that should be developed by the ESP professionals in order to constantly promote the teaching and learning effect in this important subject.
Key words: ESP teacher profile, Transformative Learning
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the most peculiar professional profiles is certainly the ESP teacher’s profile. Philologists teaching language in other subject areas but linguistics is a combination odd enough to discourage many graduated language teachers to tackle it. Though it has been recognized as specific branch of foreign language teaching for more than 30 years, ESP is a discipline that still tries to cope with basic issues of its theoretical and practical aspects, one of them being a proper ESP teacher training. Therefore, in this paper we shall try to outline a draft of an ESP teacher’s profile with the most important characteristics that should be developed by the ESP professionals in order to constantly promote the teaching and learning effect in this important academic subject. The outline will be based on the findings from Ken Bain’s 2004 book What Best College Teachers Do combined with Jack Mezirow’s Theory of Transformative Learning and our experience as ESP teachers for more than 15 years. The draft will focus on the perspectives ESP teachers should bring to their way of teaching, course design decisions and the special way of interactions with students as a result of the teachers’ personal and professional growth.