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. | Tạp chí Khoa học Ngôn ngữ và Văn hóa Tập 1, Số 1, 2017 ENGLISH LEARNING NEEDS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION STUDENTS: FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN ESP CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT Ho Thi Quynh Nhu* Hue Industrial College (HICOL) Ngày nhận bài: 22/12/2016; ngày hoàn thiện: 15/1/2017; ngày duyệt đăng: 15/3/2017 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. Key words: needs analysis, materials development, English for specific purposes (ESP), language curriculum 1. Introduction The rapid development of the world-wide economics creates high requirements of effective English education for professional purposes in most countries. Learners with better professional language competences will have more chances for job application and promotion. This reality leads to an increasing demand for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course development. The literature review reveals that studying learner needs is the very beginning step and serves as a backbone in the process of an ESP course development. This paper reports a part of questionnaire
