Dr. Sedigheh Vahdat & Sohrab Bahmaninia
Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran
In the context of Iranian science facilities, the study outlines the identification of the language needs of undergraduate students in ESP classes. The study was designed on a qualitative-quantitative survey basis using both interviews and questionnaires administered to a total of 100 undergraduate students majoring in biology, chemistry, and physics as well as 10 subject-specific instructors. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine whether there was significant mean differences based on the students’ field of the study. As no significant between-group variation was found between the three groups, they were added up, forming a single dataset to analyze the views of the three groups of respondents. Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine the differences between the students’ responses and those of the instructors. The findings revealed discrepancies between the students’ and instructors’ perception of the language needs. Instructors were outspoken critics of the students’ language skills. Similarly, students expressed dissatisfaction with the course content, methodology, the number of students, the amount of the course allocated time, and their improvement. The study concludes the instructors and course designers should consider the students’ needs and wants to better prepare them to use English in their future professions.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 2-3 February 2017, Ahwaz.
