A survey of challenges related to ESP curriculum for educational sciences Majors and strategies for their improvement

The objective of this study was to examine the challenges of ESP (English for specific purposes) curriculum of educational sciences majors and strategies to improve them. For this purpose, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 16 ESP teachers of educational sciences and 19 postgraduate students of educational sciences majors from four Universities of Iran (Allame Tabatabai University, Shahid Beheshti University, Isfahan University and Shiraz University). The face and content validity of the interview form was confirmed by five ESP and educational sciences specialists. The reliability of the results of interview was obtained using the audit trail. The theoretical infrastructure, data collection process and analysis process was confirmed. The findings showed that the main challenge of the ESP curriculum was related to the lack of the five language skills in objectives, content selection, the strategies of teaching content and assesment of ESP curriculum. The proposed basic strategy of both respondent groups was to emphasize on the realization and strengthening of the five skills in all four elements of the ESP curriculum. It is hoped that the realization of this procedure would enhance the research and the educational capabilities of students and facilitate scientific advancement.