Designing an ESP Syllabus for Promoting Sudanese Oil & Gas Staff Communicative Skills

Abstract

This study aims at designing an ESP syllabus to promote Sudanese Oil and Gas employees’ communicative skills, (a case study of Sudanese Petroleum Corporation employees). The idea of this study stems from answering the following questions: To what extent are Oil and Gas employees able to use the four basic language skills to effectively communicate in an oil industry environment? To what extent is there a gap of English language mastery between what employees of Oil and Gas have and what they actually need at the workplace?, and to what extent does designing an ESP syllabus contribute in promoting Sudanese Oil and Gas employees’ communicative skills?. The study aims at investigating the inclusion of learning needs in an ESP syllabus for Oil and Gas employees at the workplace. The researcher employed the analytical quantitative and qualitative research methods. He developed two questionnaires and conducted interviews then he came out with the following results: Most of the Oil and Gas employees need to acquire the four basic language skills. There is a huge gap between what employees of Oil and Gas have and their actual needs for English at the workplace. Besides, designing an ESP syllabus could contribute in narrowing the gap between Oil and Gas employees’ current level and their actual needs of English mastery. Based on these results, the study recommends the following: The gap of learning needs and skills needed at the workplace should be tackled by devising a new English language syllabus that meets the learners’ learning needs. This syllabus should include reading materials of the interest to the learners and vocabulary in different fields to meet their everyday needs, and great focus should be placed on the four basic language skills with greater emphasis on listening and speaking. Finally, Sudanese Oil and Gas employees’ English communicative needs at the workplace is suggested for the further research in future.