Integrating AI Tools into Vocational English for Specific Purposes (ESP): A Constructivist Pedagogical Framework

Abstract

AI tools have spread through vocational English classrooms faster than the teaching theory needed to use them well. In English for Specific Purposes (ESP), where learning the language cannot be separated from real workplace practice, teachers often bolt AI on as a shortcut rather than build it into a coherent design, which invites shallow, tool-led learning. This paper sets out a constructivist framework for bringing AI into vocational ESP. Building on social constructivism, Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, and situated learning, it treats AI as an adjustable scaffold: one that supports learners as they build knowledge in authentic industry settings, and is then gradually taken away. The framework has four parts: design principles that connect constructivist ideas to what AI can do; a typology that sorts AI functions into conceptual, procedural, metacognitive, and strategic scaffolding; an Industry-Embedded Approach that roots ESP tasks in real occupational scenarios and discourse; and a worked instructional sequence and teaching unit that show the framework in action. The argument is straightforward: AI helps vocational ESP most when it deepens situated, collaborative learning instead of bypassing it. The paper closes with what this means for the teacher’s role and for future empirical testing.