English for Specific Purposes: How to Develop Meaningful ESP/EAP Assessments

English for specific purposes (ESP) has shaped English language education since the 1960s. It focuses on giving learners the English they need for real-world academic or professional tasks, and it branches into English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for occupational purposes (EOP). EAP is further divided into English for general academic purposes (EGAP), which offers university academic English skills, like reading journal articles or writing essays, and English for specific academic purposes (ESAP), which focuses on discipline-specific needs, such as business presentations or lab-report writing.

At its core, ESP begins with two central questions:

• • Why does a learner need to learn the language?
  • What does the learner want to do with English?

In other words, ESP focuses on why learners need English and how they will use it. These questions guide not only curriculum design but also assessment. Because ESP (including all its subfields) differs from general English language teaching, its assessments need to reflect those fundamental differences in several key aspects as well. In this blog post, we offer practical ways to design and implement ESP-aligned assessments.

Focus on the Fundamental Goal

General English language teaching often uses assessment to measure what learners have acquired, but ESP assessment has four main purposes, though not every assessment needs to do all four. ESP assessments collect evidence related to each of these purposes:

1. 1. Diagnose learner needs: What English skills do learners already have? What gaps do they need to address to meet their academic or professional goals?
   2. Monitor progress: Are learners developing the specific skills the course aims to teach?
   3. Create learning opportunities: Can assessment tasks themselves support learning, not just measure it?
   4. Report achievement: How well have learners met the course learning outcomes?

These four purposes should be woven throughout the course and not just added at the very end. ESP assessments work best when they are part of ongoing instruction and skill development.

Understand the Instructor’s Role

In ESP courses, instructors are typically the main assessors. According to Abrar-ul-Hassan and Fazel, they need to understand the learners’ needs, the content and expectations of the field, and the real-world language tasks learners will perform. This means that an instructor’s language assessment literacy, especially related to ESP, is key. Although instructors don’t need to become testing experts, they should be able to:

• • Choose tasks that reflect real-life communication in the field
  • Gather evidence related to the four assessment purposes
  • Analyze student performance and interpret it meaningfully

Use the SAM Framework to Guide ESP Assessment

A simple and practical framework for ESP assessment is SAM, which includes three dimensions:

S: Specificity of Disciplinary Language

Assessment tasks should reflect the actual language of the discipline, using language at learners’ proficiency levels, as determined by the needs analysis at the start of the course.

Specificity includes:

• • Content: Vocabulary, topics, genres
  • Discourse features: style, tone, structure
  • Semiotic resources: Signs and symbols, diagrams, visuals
  • Paralinguistic features: intonation, emphasis, gestures

For example, engineering students explaining a process with diagrams, or nursing students practicing patient handovers using an appropriate register (including paralinguistic features, such as tone of voice, pitch, and tempo).

A: Authenticity of Discourse

Tasks should mirror real-world communication situations. This includes:

• • Contextual features found in the target context
  • The skills needed in that context
  • The strategies competent speakers use
  • The real-life processes involved (e.g., drafting, revising, interacting, negotiating, and co-constructing)

For example, instead of a generic speaking test, business students might make a short sales pitch or negotiate a plan with a partner (or small team).

M: Modality of Assessment

Here, modality refers to the how of assessment, which includes:

• • Visual input (charts, graphs, writing)
  • Auditory input (lectures, discussions)
  • Hands-on activities (e.g., role-plays)

Using multiple modalities also reflects how communication actually happens in many academic and professional fields.

Putting the SAM Framework Into Practice

Here are some classroom-ready suggestions for each part of the framework.

Specificity

• • • Use texts based directly on samples from the learners’ academic or professional fields, and collaborate with subject-experts when selecting texts.
    • Incorporate the speech events, genres, and visuals used in that discipline.

Authenticity

• • • Use assessment tasks that feel real.
    • Match the actual communication environment so that the test taker will carry out the task in a manner as similar as possible to real-life language use.

Modality

• • • Include a variety of task types—visual, auditory, and interactive.
    • Mirror the modality demands of the target context.

The following table can help you to frame your assessments.

SAM Framework

In ESP assessment, what matters most is keeping the learners’ real-world needs at the center: Why do they need English, and what will they use it for? The SAM framework offers a practical, easy-to-use guide to ensure your assessments are manageable for you, stay aligned with ESP principles, and support meaningful learning.

Two Resources for Further Reading

Abrar-ul-Hassan, S., & Fazal, I. (2018). English for specific purposes. In J. Liontas (Ed.), The TESOL encyclopedia of English language teaching (pp. 126–140). Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0661

Douglas, D. (2010). Assessing languages for specific purposes. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732911