1 Introduction

This section discusses the importance of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses in talent cultivation in the new era and highlights the disconnect between traditional ESP teaching and real-world work scenarios. The Production-Oriented Approach (POA) addresses the issue of separation between learning and application by creating authentic communicative contexts and emphasizing the alignment of instructional design with practical needs. The POA teaching process consists of three stages: motivating, enabling, and assessing, with the motivating stage being particularly crucial for teaching effectiveness. Current research on the POA motivating stage remains limited. To tackle the problems of disconnection and fragmented teaching in ESP courses, the author proposes a hierarchical and laddered motivating task chain design and implements it in the "Art English" course to validate its effectiveness.

2 Pain Points in the Original Course

This section examines the challenges encountered in the teaching practice of the ESP course "Art English." The course aims to develop students' professional English skills and knowledge of Chinese art and culture but suffers from issues such as the separation of learning and application and fragmented teaching. Key problems include: 1) a focus on reading with insufficient practical application; 2) content organized chronologically according to Chinese art history, lacking systematic and thematic coherence; 3) unclear teaching themes, scattered vocabulary learning, and insufficient knowledge integration; and 4) uneven difficulty levels in learning materials without progressive sequencing. These issues lead to diminished student motivation and compromised teaching effectiveness. Addressing them requires redefining teaching objectives based on practical needs, reorganizing textbook content, and designing a step-by-step task chain to guide students in gradually mastering knowledge and skills for extended practice.

3 The "Four Elements, Three Levels" Design Framework

This section introduces a hierarchical and laddered motivating task chain design framework based on POA to address the issues in the "Art English" ESP course. The framework structures the course around four dimensions—disciplinary themes, typical events, professional roles, and industry settings—and designs output tasks across three levels: course, semester, and unit. The four elements correspond to topics, purposes, identities, and contexts, respectively, to enhance scenario-driven motivation. The three-level design framework includes a comprehensive course-level overview, semester-level macro-scenario design, and unit-level micro-scenario design to ensure course coherence, systematicity, and progression. This approach enhances students' sense of authenticity and motivation while preventing knowledge fragmentation.

4 Case Analysis of the "Art English" Motivating Task Chain Design

This section elaborates on the design and teaching practice of the motivating task chain in the "Art English" course. At the macro level, based on the "Four Elements, Three Levels" framework, driving scenarios and tasks are planned for four semesters, each focusing on one art discipline theme and six unit topics, with integrated application of the four elements to reflect the specificity of ESP and the coherence of each semester. The meso-level design centers on semester-long motivating task chains, using the "Evolution and Development of Chinese Calligraphy" module as an example. Guided by principles of coherence, systematicity, and progression, semester-long tasks are designed to achieve incremental increases in task difficulty and skill development. The micro-level design focuses on unit-level teaching, exemplified by the "Exhibition Board Design" task. It details specific teaching steps, including the teacher presenting communicative scenarios, students attempting output, the teacher clarifying objectives and tasks, and how prior tasks are transformed into model texts for subsequent tasks to sustain student interest and ensure organic connections between macro/micro scenarios and main/sub-tasks.

5 Analysis and Reflection on Teaching Effectiveness of "Art English" (Chinese Calligraphy Module)

This chapter evaluates the teaching effectiveness of the "Art English" (Chinese Calligraphy module) through triangulation, including teacher observations and student feedback. Results show that the teaching practice enhanced knowledge applicability, improved course coherence and systematicity, and strengthened learning motivation. Students highly accepted the motivating tasks and recognized their output competence, though those with weaker English foundations required additional guidance. The instructional design effectively integrated textbook resources, adhered to motivating design principles, and systematically guided students through progressively challenging tasks. However, shortcomings included insufficient consideration of differentiated instruction and the need for more detailed task-step guidance.

6 Conclusion

This study, based on the POA theoretical framework, designs a "hierarchical and laddered motivating task chain" model for ESP courses to address the separation of learning and application, fragmented teaching, and low motivation. Guided by the macro-unit teaching concept and holistic language teaching principles, the "Four Elements, Three Levels" framework was used to design coherent, systematic, and progressive motivating tasks, achieving positive results in practice. By reorganizing textbook content, the study resolved issues of broad but unsystematic content and closely aligned motivating scenarios and tasks with real-world contexts and job requirements, sparking student interest and helping them understand the practical value of their learning. Additionally, laddered task progression in type and difficulty guided students to recognize their gaps, thereby boosting motivation. Limitations include limited data accumulation and some students' online-only participation, which affected outcomes. Future research should explore real-world job task requirements and the applicability of the hierarchical motivating task chain model to design more practical and diverse tasks, while clarifying the principles and operational pathways for implementing the motivating stage both theoretically and practically.