Engineering Students' ESP Problems at Islamic Azad Universities in Mazandaran Province using WhatsApp Application

Using a needs analysis (NA) and evaluation questionnaire, this study aimed at finding the common English language needs of engineering students regardless of their majors at Islamic Azad universities across Mazandaran province. At the same time, the ESP materials were also evaluated by both ESP students and instructors. Based on the NA conducted, an EGAP course was designed and taught to a group of students as the experimental group prior to their ESP course. Teaching was done using WhatsApp Messenger. Using WhatsApp gave students the opportunity to learn English in an environment they were familiar with. In fact, the advantage of using WhatsApp is that it provides a suitable educational environment that is always available to students and also allows easy communication with the professor. After the ESP course, the mean score of this group was compared to that of control group. The result of the independent samples t-test showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups but the eta square was low and negligible, indicating that for more power, a longer treatment course was needed.