Teaching EST in Algeria: Training or retraining language teachers?

Abstract

In this new millennium, learning English to fulfil communicative purposes becomes a worldwide concern, and Algeria is one of the interesting nations in developing the status of English regarded as a key to scientific and technological development. To meet such a challenge, the educational authority in Algeria implements the use of English mainly at all tertiary-level institutions. ESP courses are provided in different departments to meet learners’ specific objectives both academic and occupational. In this respect, teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) at the university level seems to have its own challenges and requirements in Algeria. This is, particularly, on the part of the language teacher and to ensure learners’ success, teachers’ qualifications, attitudes, and attributes have to be taken into consideration along side with the learners’ needs and desires. In this line of thought, our General English teachers often express their inadequacy for such positions; this may occur because of their fear of being unable to cater for their learners’ specific needs. As a result, being unprepared for teaching ESP, language teachers often find themselves obliged to rely on their own experience to teach those classes, as well as, to create their own teaching materials with respect to their students’ discipline and needs, too. Therefore, the main aim of the current paper is to present, discuss and reflect upon the actual situation of the language teachers who have been trained in linguistics, phonetics, civilization,…etc, and who are recruited to teach EST at the physics department within the faculty of Exact Sciences of Tlemcen University, and to search for the possible ways to increase the competence and confidence of those EST practitioners through a moderate call towards retraining them in other areas of interests.