Information Technology Students’ Language Needs for their ESP Course

The purpose of this study was to find the needs of Iranian undergraduate Information Technology (IT) engineering students for their ESP course. To this end, a needs analysis questionnaire was administered to 30 undergraduate IT students to elicit information about their needs in English language at Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch. The results of data analysis revealed that among four skills reading was the highly needed skill followed by writing. It was also found that a majority of participants were dissatisfied with the current ESP courses for undergraduate students. This, in fact, indicated that ESP curricula have not yet been successfully developed in satisfying the students’ professional needs in target situations. Findings point to the fact that ESP and its teaching in Iran has to undergo serious rethinking not only in the content of the course but also the whole process of teaching the language. The findings can help course designers to both put much more credit for ESP courses, and consider appropriate and suitable materials which can give useful information to the students. It can also help ESP teachers to meet the language needs of their students.