ENGLISH LEARNING NEEDS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION STUDENTS: FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN ESP CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Students majoring in Business Administration (hereafter BA) need to maintain good English competence in response to today’s rapid globalization. This study aimed to investigate the BA learners’ needs in learning English as an approach to ESP curriculum. With this objective, the research employed both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data from 92 BA students and 8 ESP teachers at Hue Industrial College (HUEIC). The data collected from the questionnaires were processed by SPSS software while the interviews were analyzed according to the responses provided. The findings implied significant factors to consider in the ESP curriculum design for students of BA: (i) speaking and listening should be prioritized; (ii) workplace-oriented skills such as telephoning, writing emails, reading business texts and interviewing should be included; (iii) content-based and skill-integrated materials should be used or developed and (iv) interactive and project-based activities were suggested.