چکیده:
The status of teaching ESP has been studied both internationally and locally. However, it seems
that the challenges of teaching ESP in medical universities of Iran have not been studied
appropriately. The main objective of the present study was to explore the main challenges of
teaching ESP in medical universities of Iran. Due to the nature of the study, a qualitative res earch
design (Phenomenological) was used. The data were gathered through interviewing 25 ESP
stakeholders from two universities of medical sciences in Tehran. The data were analyzed
through content analysis techniques. The results showed that the challenges are classified into
three main themes: institution challenges, learner related challenges, and teacher related
challenges. Institution related challenges consisted of undetermined aims, structure of the
curricula, and content of syllabus, evaluation, time limitation and classroom size. The learner
related challenges included lack of motivation, poor GEL background, and learners’ focus on
test, and learners’ inappropriate needs’ analysis. ESP teachers’ related challenges included
teacher’s language proficiency, teachers’ content knowledge, teachers’ perception of ESP,
teachers’ teaching method, teachers’ familiarity with material development, and testing skills.
The findings of the study can be used to promote the status of teaching ESP in medical
universities.
خلاصه ماشینی:
ESP teachers’ related challenges included teacher’s language proficiency, teachers’ content knowledge, teachers’ perception of ESP, teachers’ teaching method, teachers’ familiarity with material development, and testing skills.
However, despite the great emphasis laid on teaching ESP as a separate branch of English language teaching (ELT) (Robinson, Hutchinson & Waters, 1987), and the existence of related studies on teaching ESP at Iranian universities, to our best of knowledge no one has appropriately investigated whether teaching ESP to students of medical sciences meets the requirements of principles of teaching ESP or not.
More specifically, the following research question was raised: What are the main challenges of teaching ESP to students at universities of medical sciences in Iran?
He argued that in teaching ESP courses at all levels, discipline-specialist teachers with an adequate mastery on English are more competent than teachers with ELT majors since they are much more familiar with the technical terms and topics of the students’ field of study.
d. Syllabus related Challenges Majority of the participants argued that the materials used in the ESP courses are not language materials but subject materials (contents are adapted from technical subjects).
c. Learners’ poor general English Majority of the participants argued that also the main difficulty while teaching ESP at university level is that that the students do not understand the basic sentence structures and parts of speech.
The participants argued that some of the ESP teachers teaching at medical universities of Iran lack certain language teaching skills.