This article presents some contributions to programs of English for Special Purposes from the perspective of recent theories of literacies as a possibility to expand the participants' critical-interpretive capacity. Through reconciling English for Special purposes with emphasis on critical literacies, a community course entitled ESP workshop: readings for the present-future in contemporary world in the language course at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul was offered. This course focused on the participants' meaning making through multimodal language, critical reflections upon complex cultural diversity and awareness of the fact that language is also a phenomenon that generates social practices and mobility.
critical literacies; English for Special Purposes; meaning making; contingency; context