Challenges of Teaching and Learning Business English in Ukrainian Universities

Abstract

The English has been widely used and expanded with the globalization of the business world, notably ESP is considered a part of it. This study aims to seek out the challenges of teaching and learning Business English in Ukrainian universities. Considerable experience as Business English teachers at several Ukrainian universities and ongoing contact with colleagues in the professional community of ESP teachers, provides an opportunity to affirm that the results we found in the empirical study are typical for most Ukrainian universities. This assumption was also supported in the discussions with the ESP teachers from different regions of Ukraine during the British Council's “English for Universities” project (2015-2018). Data collection was done by conducting a questionnaire survey for the ESP practitioners that had the issues in teaching ESP course at the Faculty of Economics, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv The findings revealed the challenges that ESP practitioners face, particularly: difference in students’ language competence, course content selection, lack of motivation, in-class hours etc. and possible solutions in overcoming the constraints in teaching. The study suggests that Business English practitioners should develop and improve practical tools for evaluation and certification of results following the requirements and further improvements should be implemented in the methodology and organization of ESP teaching, the content of the course, the course design, the development of course-books and supplementary teaching materials for each specialty.