1 Introduction

The 10th National Symposium on English for Specific Purposes, held in November 2023, focused on "promoting ESP teaching and supporting the construction of the four new technologies", attracting more than 200 representatives from different universities. The meeting focused on the intersection of ESP with new engineering, new medicine, new agriculture, and new humanities, and explored the teaching mode of English for Specific Purposes in the context of the four new disciplines, including professional English teaching, content-based teaching, all English teaching, and interdisciplinary cooperative teaching. Participants hold different opinions on whether these teaching models constitute interdisciplinary studies, and this article aims to conduct in-depth discussions on this.

Several teaching methods related to English for Specific Purposes

Professional English (SBE) teaching is offered in college English or English majors, aiming to help students obtain professional information in English and improve their foreign language reading abilities. Professional English courses are usually taught by professional teachers, and the textbooks are selected from original subject specific topics, with a focus on explaining professional terminology, vocabulary, sentence comprehension, and translation. With the development of all English and bilingual teaching, professional English courses are gradually transforming into bilingual or all English courses, taught by English teachers and professional teachers in collaboration. The course content is relatively shallow and focuses on language teaching.

3. Specialized English Attributes and Interdisciplinary Intersection

ESP (English for Specific Purposes) is a teaching philosophy developed to meet the needs of specific disciplines and professions. Unlike traditional general English teaching, it focuses on the use of language related to professions and occupations. The definition of ESP includes meeting the needs of specific learners, content related to specific professions and occupations, and language use for specific professional and occupational activities. The core of ESP teaching lies in analyzing the language features of specific genres in a particular subject, rather than the subject content itself. Interdisciplinary theory emphasizes the integration of theoretical knowledge from one discipline with another, rather than solely relying on language exchange. Specialized language is an important branch of linguistics that applies functional linguistics and pragmatics theories to study language expression in specific fields, in order to help students become familiar with the language expression of their subject and cope with practical communication situations.

How to carry out specialized English teaching

The teaching content of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is divided into Science and Technology English, Business English, and Social Science English, further subdivided into Academic English EAP and Industry English EOP. Academic English includes General Academic English (EGAP) and Specialized Academic English (ESAP), with EGAP being a transitional course and ESAP being subject specific. The four academic English courses offered by the Language Center of Tsinghua University belong to EGAP, aimed at cultivating students' academic English writing skills, such as citation, summarization, synthesis, citing references, and avoiding plagiarism. ESAP focuses on academic reading and writing in specific disciplines, especially the writing and publication of academic papers. Industry English mainly targets characteristic universities such as tourism, civil aviation, arts, and sports, such as Flight English at Civil Aviation University of China and Hotel Management courses at Guilin Tourism College.

5 Conclusion

It emphasizes that true specialized English teaching should focus on the language rules of specific subjects, rather than a simple combination of English and majors. Advocate for the integration of specialized English into university English education, achieving a transition from general academic English to specialized academic English and industry English. At the same time, it is recommended that language teachers transition to specialized English teachers classified by subject to promote career development.