Investigating the Impact of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Curriculum on Moroccan Graduates’ Career

Abstract

Knowledge of a foreign language opens new possibilities of mobility and cooperation for professionals in the contemporary world. Policy makers acknowledge the important role that foreign languages, especially English, play in the professional development of experts and try to present this language at tertiary level. Generally, an ESP course is designed to improve students’ communication skills not merely for the exam, but also for situations in a specific workplace. This paper investigates the impact that English for Specific Purposes (ESP) curriculum has on Moroccan graduates in the career experience. It also explores whether the ESP courses are more expedient in the workplace than traditional English courses, and how ESP curriculum should be reshaped to adapt the needs of the job market. The data are collected through online interviews from 6 participants whose majors were English and who graduated from Moroccan universities and all the participants have at least one year of work experience in English-speaking countries. The results of this research indicate that universities ESP curriculum design, work place, and teachers’ specific field knowledge do have notable influence on participants in the work environment. They show that the current ESP in use fails to capture the learners’ needs and skills in the workplace communication. The study divulges that there is a huge discrepancy of the perceptions of the students’ needs between the ESP teachers and employers in both academic and occupational situations.  Furthermore, the study’s findings recommended that Moroccan universities should re-design or develop their ESP curriculum to allow their students meet the future job requirements as well as supplementing extra materials through teachers’ continual needs analysis.