职业院校培养的是一线的技术人才,他们承担着生产一线的管理与技术指导工作,其素质高低与生产效率有直接关系。随着经济全球化速度的加快,对这些技术人员在语言领域的技能提出了更高要求。而目前我国高职所培养的众多人才中,大多数步入社会、走向市场、踏上岗位时,无法把所学的语言知识与具体的实际运用联系起来。他们仍然开不了口、动不了手,既看不懂专业的英文资料与图纸,也无法与对方交谈。这种状况使得对职业院校英语教学进行积极探索与改革成为当务之急,对职业院校的发展意义重大。职业教育的特征决定了职业院校语言教学应该属于应用语言的范畴,而ESP是应用语言学发展的产物。本文分析了ESP应用于职业院校英语教学的可行性。 Vocational training is a front-line technical talent, they assume the first-line production management and technical guidance, the level of its quality and production efficiency are directly related. With the acceleration of economic globalization, higher demands are placed on the skills of these technicians in the language field. At present, most of the large number of talents cultivated by higher vocational education in our country are entering the society and going to the market. When they embark on their posts, they can not link their learned language knowledge with concrete practical applications. They still can not open their mouths and can not move their hands. They can not read professional English information and drawings and can not talk with each other. This situation makes it imperative to conduct active exploration and reform of English teaching in vocational colleges, which is of great significance to the development of vocational colleges. The characteristics of vocational education determine that language teaching in vocational colleges should belong to the category of applied language. ESP is the product of the development of applied linguistics. This article analyzes the feasibility of applying ESP to English teaching in vocational colleges.