Opening Address1
Kevin Knight
Kanda University of International Studies
The Opening Address explores the ESP Project Leader Profiles for the professional
development of ESP practitioners worldwide. The 51 profiles have been published primarilyon the official blog of TESOL International Association and exceed 57,000 words intotal. In each profile, the featured ESP project leader defines leadership and describes
leadership communication in a successful ESP project. The profiles may provide insights
into negotiating a definition of program quality and how to achieve it. This paper is adaptedfrom Knight (2019).

The ESP Project Leader ProfilesThe ESP Project Leader Profiles were created for the professional development ofESP practitioners and researchers worldwide. Fifty profiles were published on theblog of TESOL International Association from May 2015 to December 2018.
The 51st profile appeared in the March 2019 issue of ESP News (the newsletter ofthe TESOL ESP Interest Section), and the 52nd profile is in press. The 51 profiles
published to date exceed 57,000 words in total, and the projects discussed are on
six continents.
A profile features an ESP project leader and contains the following
components:
1. My introduction
2. Bio of the featured leader3. Photo, affiliation, contact information
4. The leader’s responses to two prompts:• “Define leadership in your own words.”• “Tell me an ESP project success story. Focus on your communication
as a leader in the project. How did you communicate with stakeholders
to make that project successful?”7Knight

5. My comments
The two prompts in the profiles were adapted from Knight’s (2015) semistructured interviews with self-identified leaders in the public, private, andacademic sectors. The length of a profile in the TESOL Blog was eventuallylimited by TESOL International Association to 1,200 words. The profiles in
ESP News also maintain a self-imposed limit of 1,200 words for consistency.
TESOL ESP Interest Section (ESPIS) Steering Board members including
chairs (past and present) account for 17 of the first 20 leaders, and for 25 of
the 51 leaders. There are an equal number of male and female leaders in first 20
profiles, and the gender balance is maintained as 27 of the 51 leaders are female.
The countries listed in the profiles span the globe from Japan to Brazil,
and the wide range of projects fall under many headings, including aviationmaintenance, healthcare, and materials for mobile phones.

Communication in the Profiles

Two definitions of leadership have contributed to a framework that can be used
to analyze the profiles: “Leadership [is] a communication process consisting of
two parts: 1) communicating to create a vision and 2) communicating to achievea vision” (Knight, 2013), and “Leadership is making real a vision in collaboration
with others” (Knight & Candlin, 2015, p. 36). The framework has three parts:
1. The vision to be created• an ESP program, book, research article, government policy
2. Communication to create the vision• obtaining stakeholder input in creating an ESP program, e.g., needs
analysis
3. Communication to achieve the vision• persuading stakeholders to support an ESP program that has beencreated• conducting activities in the ESP program• ongoing communication with stakeholders, e.g., student feedback andprogress reports
The framework clarifies the communication of the leaders in the profiles.
8

Opening Address, OCJSI 2, pages 7-10

As an example, consider extracts from two profiles2 where the communication
is to create a vision:
English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) program (Profile 1)• Listened to perspectives of all stakeholders using a variety of methods(focus groups, surveys, 1:1 meetings).
• Clearly articulated the vision, process, and framework to key stakeholders
using visuals as well as written and oral communication methods.
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program (Profile 7)• The stakeholders did not know that ESP was what they wanted, but
because I had ESP analysis skills, I was able to help them define andenvision a program that prepared the learners specifically for thecommunication tasks they would have to do.
• Having opened Pandora’s box of dreams, I then had to help thestakeholders focus in on what their most important goals were for theprogram and to define what was achievable in the time available.
The implication for program quality is the importance of a focus oncommunication because stakeholders negotiate the definition of quality andhow the quality agreed upon is achieved. The 51 profiles also show that ongoing
communication with stakeholders at all stages of program development andimplementation is important for program success.

Notes

1. The 51 ESP Project Leader Profiles analyzed in this paper are accessible on
the blog of TESOL International Association (http://blog.tesol.org). They
are also listed with publication dates and links in the Library of the TESOLESP Interest Section (ESPIS) in myTESOL (https://my.tesol.org/home).
(Please note that only TESOL members may access the ESPIS Library.) In
addition, the profiles may be accessed in the more recent issues of ESP News
(https://www.tesol.org/read-and-publish/newsletters-other-publications/interest-section-newsletters/esp-news), which is the newsletter of theESPIS, and at the author’s website titled The Leadership Connection Project(https://leadershipconnectionproject.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/esp9

Knightproject-leader-profiles/).
2. See the ESP Project Leader Profiles in the blog mentioned above, which
include: Profile 1. Kristin Ekkens, and Profile 7. Ethel Swartley.

References

Knight, K. (2013). Looking at communication through a leadership lens.
TESOL Blog. Alexandria,Virginia: TESOL International Association. http://blog.tesol.org/looking-atcommunication-through-a-leadership-lens/
Knight, K. (2015). Analysing the discourses of leadership as a basis for developing
leadership communication skills in a second or foreign language [Doctoral
dissertation, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia]. Macquarie
University ResearchOnline. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/1055529
Knight, K. (2019). Fifty-one (51) ESP project leader profiles. Professional andAcademic English, 52, 13–20.
Knight, K., & Candlin, C.N. (2015). Leadership discourse as basis and meansfor developing L2 students into future leaders. In P. Shrestha (Ed.), Current
developments in English for academic and specific purposes: Local innovations
and global perspectives (pp. 27–50). Garnet.

Author BioDr. Kevin Knight (PhD in linguistics, MBA, MPIA) is an associate professor inthe Department of International Communication (International Business Careermajor) and a researcher in the Research Institute for Learner Autonomy Education(RILAE) of Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan. In TESOLInternational Association, he is co-editor of ESP News, a former ESP blogger andESPIS former chair. <knight@kanda.kuis.ac.jp>
Received: October 20, 2019
Accepted: September 9, 202010