English abstract
In spite of the prominence of research on social responsibility teaching as a skill for today, managing social responsibility in foreign language teaching settings is still not a very well explored territory, and the ESP classroom is not an exception. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that examined the ways social responsibility is integrated into ESP classrooms as perceived by the teachers, with a particular focus on their considerations of socially responsible pedagogy that can potentially contribute to students' linguistic and socio-cultural advancement. The study used qualitative interviews with 43 English language teachers from Oman's higher education institutions who shared their understanding of social responsibility and how it is incorporated and addressed in their credit and foundation ESP courses. Data analysis was conducted using a method of rhizo-textual analysis (Honan, 2007). Findings reveal that teachers place social responsibility high in terms of its ethical value and importance for students' future employability. They also indicate that despite the perceived importance, administrative support, ESP curriculum content development, and implementation, social responsibility is on average moderately managed in the ESP classrooms due to a lack of social responsibility perspective in some pre-service teaching courses and in-service professional development, perceived issues with time, design and implementation of in-class and extra-curricular activities. The findings of this research contribute to the literature about the importance of social responsibility and direct further developments, leading to effective social responsibility teaching and learning.
