Learners' Attitudes In An Esp Environment : Case Of 3rd Year Biology Students At The University Of Oran

Résumé: The Aim of this study was to conduct a research to describe the teaching/learning process of English for Specific Purposes (henceforth ESP) in the Department of Biology at the University of Oran and the learners' attitudes towards this teaching with a special reference to third year Biology students. For this purpose, it was necessary to explore the status of ESP at this institution, to verify the usefulness of ESP as perceived by teachers and learners, to find out about the major issues related to this specific teaching/learning situation, and to suggest some proposals as possible remedial actions to the main encountered problems and concerns. To gather relevant information, a case study was conducted through a combination of learners' questionnaire and informal interviews with language teachers, subject specialist teachers, and the administration staff. As the results of the study indicate, most of the learners had a positive attitude towards ESP, however they claim that their poor achievement was due to various factors such as the unsuitable accomplishment they had at high-school, the current inappropriate syllabus, and the absence of materials. It was therefore shown that ESP did not appear to really fulfill its basic pedagogical functions. The existing issues were then discussed and tentative solutions were provided. This work revealed that a good achievement of ESP requires a considerable teacher professional development, an essential learner training and continued commitment on the part of thedecision-makers.

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