ESP Learners’ Needs: A Case Study of Medicine Students at Some Sudanese Universities

Abstract

This study has investigated ESP learners' needs in some Sudanese Universities. In particular the study has targeted, the students studying medicine through the medium of English language. Learners' needs were divided into three categories which cover general needs, academic needs and job needs. Three universities were chosen to examine the hypotheses of the study. The first hypothesis stated that "the most needed English subject is academic reading", the second one stated that "majority of the subjects, regardless of their academic levels have the same English needs" and the last hypothesis is" majority of the students do not have further base-communication non-academic English needs". The study has raised these questions: 1-What is the most urgent English need of the Sudanese medicine students? 2- Do learners, regardless of their academic level, have the same English needs? 3- Do the medicine students need English for further communicative, non-academic purposes? To test these hypotheses and answer these questions, the researcher adopted a descriptive and analytic methodology. The data were collected using Al-Busairi's (1990) questionnaire. Then the collected data were analyzed and discussed. The findings of the study have revealed that, concerning the first hypothesis the results revealed that the most needed English subject is listening skill not academic reading as the study hypothesized, the students in different levels do not have the same English needs and they indicate that they need English for professionals purposes. In the light of the results mentioned above the study has provided some recommendations in regard to the learners ESP needs, which might guide the teachers and the designers of ESP in their investigation to determine the linguistic needs for the target learners.