ced significance in many diverse settings as educators and students alike undertake efforts to acquire sufficient English language verbal and written communication skills to improve academic and professional outcomes (Hutchinson & Waters, 1991). It is within this general background that the present study of English for Specific Purposes in the country of Kuwait has been undertaken.
Well over 25 years ago, Anthony (1975) and Mackay and Mountford (1978) argued that the necessity of acquiring English language skills was directly linked to two factors: 1) the migration of students and professionals to educational or professional environments in which English is the primary mode of discourse; and 2) the demands of the marketplace for workers capable of employing English within a work-related context. As a result of the growing demand for English courses tailored to specific needs, new ideas in the study of language and language instruction began to emerge.
Widdowson (1978) suggested that a general shift in the aim of language teaching from a tradition of emphasizing grammatical and linguistic rules to discovering the ways in which language is actually used in communication took place. Linguists began to examine language "not only as a set of grammatical structures but also a set of functions" (Kennedy & Bolitho, 1984, 2). The result was the development of ESP, which has been influential in demonstrating how a communicative language curriculum could be turned into either a functional-notional syllabus or a task-based syllabus (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998).
The rationale underpinning ESP's methodology emanates from Widdowson's (1978) argument that spoken and written English varies from one context to another, which means that there are significant differences between, for example, the English of commerce and that of engineering. English language instructors working in the context of ESP recognize the instructional...