Design Principles for an English for Specific Purposes Coursebook

The aim of this paper is to formulate selected theoretical and methodological conclusions and recommendations arising from the results of design-based research of an English for specific purposes coursebook carried out in cooperation between the Department of Foreign Languages of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication at the University of Technology and the Institute for Research in School Education of the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University in Brno. The individual chapters discuss the optimal characteristics of the English for specific purposes coursebook resulting from the research findings while validating the existing theories of English language learning materials design. The first chapter describes how the subject matter should be presented to ensure the clear arrangement of the coursebook and facilitate the English language acquisition. The second chapter addresses the issue of integration of language skills based on the theories of second language acquisition and the process-oriented approach, which should be taken into account when designing English for specific purposes coursebooks. The third and fourth chapters focus on different ways of acquiring vocabulary and language functions in English for specific purposes coursebooks. The text of the paper is supplemented by illustrative examples of tasks and activities from the coursebook English for Information Technology, which was the subject of design-based research.