Crowdsourcing as a Tool for Improving Learning in Tertiary Institutions in Developing Countries

2. Growth Of Esp And Crowdsourcing In The Middle East

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and crowdsourcing are emerging strategies that are increasingly being used to achieve desired policy goals, including higher education. Higher education is a knowledge-based industry that needs an inflow of ideas and innovative ways of doing things - including those provided by ESP and crowdsourcing- in order to increase its own efficiency and productivity. In this section, we shall discuss the growth of ESP first and then explore the role of crowdsourcing on higher education in the Middle East.

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  ESP and Its Growth: By way of providing a background to the growth of ESP, this section briefly explores its form, approach and rationale using the available literature and then identifies the major growth factors.

The primary focus of ESP focuses on language context rather than on teaching syntax and language structures (Lorenzo, 2005). In this sense, ESP is considered different from English language teaching in that it focuses on outcome rather than language syntax (Dudley-Evans and St. John 1998). Because of the diversity of global socio-economic activities Belcher (2004) observes that ESP increasingly encompasses a diversifying and expanding range of purposes. Regarding its teaching method, ESP bases all decisions with respect to content and method on the learner’s reason for learning (Hutchinson and Waters 1987).