Designing an ESP course through a PBL approach in an EFL setting

Student-centered and communication-oriented approaches are gaining importance in language teaching studies. Especially with the approaches that enable language learning through mutual communication, many different approaches and methods have been used since the 1970s. In our country, in line with the 2023 Education Vision Document, it is aimed to use language effectively both in and out of the classroom as the first goal among the goals of language education. In this context, this study aims to bring together two approaches that have become increasingly important in the field of language teaching in recent years at the high school level, so that high school students learning English as a foreign language can use the language effectively and actively, solve real-life problems with their language skills, and participate in classes with high motivation while doing so. In this context, the aim of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of using Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approaches together to increase high school students' problem-solving skills and English language use skills. The study also aims to measure the effects of using these two approaches together on students' perceptions of the course content created by the use of these two methods. The study will also shed light on the researcher's perceptions during the lessons prepared using these methods. This study was conducted in a high school with the voluntary participation of 25 students. The convenience sampling method was used to select 25 students as participants. Four different data collection methods were used in the study. First, a one-group pretest posttest and delayed test were applied to the students. In this way, the effectiveness of these two methods was investigated. In addition, a questionnaire was prepared at the end of the process and the students were asked whether they were satisfied with the use of these two teaching methods together. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with randomly selected students to provide a qualitative analysis of the process. In addition, the teacher, as a researcher, evaluated the process and his own development during the training by evaluating the diaries he kept since the beginning of the implementation. Keywords: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Problem-Based Learning (PBL), Teaching English as a Foreign Language