Towards ESP’s Specific Purposes: An Investigation of Language Learning Needs

Abstract

English for Specific Purposes (ESP), as a form of language teaching, can be distinguished by its adherence to facilitating acquisition of the language skills based on the relevant needs of a group of learners. Thus, the rationale of the study is to investigate the Arab learners’ language learning needs in a General Foundation Program (GFP) of a technical higher education institution. The study was guided by a developed ESP Course Design Framework that has four major treads with various rungs to complete the ESP cycle. The research surveyed 77 Level 4 GFP learners using a needs analysis questionnaire about their background, their goal for learning the language, the importance of the macro skills and related language areas, what they want to study, what they want to be trained, and what they want to improve. The responses of the learners could result in useful materials, such as an ESP Course Outline that assures the incorporation of the learning needs of the ESL/EFL learners. Furthermore, proposed Learning Plans, which is a departure from the traditional Lesson Plan, could be written and put together to comprise an ESP Module.

Keywords: language teaching, needs analysis, English for specific purposes, language acquisition, language learning