Teacher and student perceptions of academic and professional literacies in ESP at tertiary and applied colleges in Kuwait

This thesis reports a qualitative study of the perceptions of academic and professional literacies of ESP teachers and their students in a Kuwaiti vocational higher education institution. The specific foci were threefold: (1) the ESP teachers’ perceptions of academic and professional literacy practices and the classroom practices and course content they see asimportant to support effective literacy teaching; (2) the ESP students' perceptions of academic and professional literacies and of the classroom practices and course content supportive of their professional literacy acquisition; (3) the effects of these perceptions on teaching and learning. The research employed three qualitative research methodologies to focus on the experience of the individual and present a holistic understanding of the phenomena investigated: (1) semi-structured interviews; (2) classroom observations; (3) document collection. The participants included eight ESP teachers (two from each of the four colleges offering ESP courses at PAAET) and twenty-four ESP learners (three learners taught by each of the teachers recruited). Each participant was interviewed twice: once before the classroom observation period and once after. The first interviews and observation periods determined the questions for the second interviews and relevant documents were collected from participants whenever possible. The focus on the individual and an in-depth analysis of his/her experience provided a rich data set regardless of the relatively small sample that this qualitative study worked with. The study indicates (1) that ESP teacher and learner perceptions of literacy practices needs are context-derived, transferrable from one context to another, and include communication and social norms of the discourse community; (2) ESP teachers’ perceptions of these literacy practices shaped their pedagogical choices; (3) ESP teacher and learner understandings of the learners’ future professional contexts played a significant role in learner engagement in the ESP classroom; (4) limitations in understanding of situated literacy practices were obstacles to the ESP teachers’ ability to develop their ESP courses. The study has implications for the training of ESP teachers and for the role of target situation analysis in ESP course design. It also has implications for the involvement of ESP students, as stakeholders, in discussions around the design of ESP programs.