Exploring esp textbooks for commerce and medicine: An analysis of skills and types of instruction

Abstract

The present study explores the communicative potential of two ESP textbooks. It examines a sample of activities of English for Commerce and English for Medicine textbooks with an instrument of analysis consisting of three parts: (1) a section for the metadata of the activities, (2) a checklist which assesses the presence and distribution of language skills and systems, and (3) a scale devised by Criado (2016) which measures the weight of meaning-focused and form-focused instruction found in activities. To study these elements, a framework describing and illustrating each component was designed. Inter-rater reliability tests were carried out to ensure the validity of the results. The findings of the study suggest that these textbooks are mainly meaning-focused, although some differences as regards the extent to which each of these elements is promoted can be found. Moreover, several methodological issues are raised in order to improve future research concerning materials analysis.