Two ESP projects under the test of time: The case of Brazil and Tunisia

The paper is a response to Holmes and Celani’s (2006) invitation to learn from the Brazilian ESP experience. It discusses the conditions which sustained this experience, and compares the Brazilian situation to the Tunisian one. The paper also discusses the challenges that ESP projects in EFL environments face, the opportunities that ESP professionals should seize, and how they can learn from the success of the Brazilian project. It is argued that even if the situations in Brazil and Tunisia share some contextual features, they differ in terms of sustainability.The seven conditions to sustainability in the case of the Brazilian ESP projects are used to diagnose the practice of ESP in the Tunisian context. The Brazilian experience is also used to propose successful answers in order to promote ESP in non-Anglophone contexts.