Nasim Ghanbari

Besides the regular duties of a general English language teacher, ESP practitioners need to deal with an array of administrative, curricular, interdisciplinary, and pedagogical issues in their context of practice. This gets even more demanding when ESP practitioners face shifting educational contexts which imply that they should handle new variables that might affect their practice to different degrees. The present study reports the situated practice of two Iranian experienced ESP practitioners faced with a nation-wide reform in the English curriculum of the universities. In particular, the change demanded a decrease in the load of English courses offered in Petroleum University of Technology as a particular ESP context in Iran. The findings of the intensive interviews along with the teachers‘ narratives showed how the two teachers experienced the change in the context. The teachers explained the way they performed when faced the challenging situations induced by the change in the context. The particular findings of the present study can help the professional development of the ESP teachers. In particular, considering the marginalized status of ESP in the English language departments, the results of the present study can facilitate the novice ESP teachers‘ professional development and hence their identity construction in the context.