Promoting oral communication skills in ESP classroom

Abstract

For ESP students to communicate professionally in seminars, workshops, student conferences, and professional associations, they must have strong oral communication skills. However, because they are unable to comprehend the ESP lexis on their own, the students' oral presentations lack correctness and fluidity. When under pressure to communicate with professional clarity, learners continue to mentally translate in their home tongue before speaking, frequently substituting improperly simple vocabulary for formal lexis. Thus, the ability of a learner to generate precise target language lexical phrase and word combination equivalents in spontaneous contexts is what is essentially meant to be understood under oral skills in ESP.

In this paper we concentrate on different theories, techniques and methods that have been put forward by prominent researchers to promote oral communication in ESP context.