Abstract
The present study has been conducted with the purpose of exploring the relationship between EDBI staff's General English proficiency and their technical English Writing as well as the way each ESBP and GE courses affect their writing skill. The kind of the study is quasi-experimental with pre-test and post-test, being conducted among EDBI staff in Tehran Branches and Headquarters. In data collection two standard tests were used, namely Preliminary English Test (PET) for homogenous subjects, and also the level of their GE progress at the end of the treatment, and Business English Certificates (BEC) test Level B1, to measure their technical writing skill with appropriate validity and reliability. The findings indicate that: 1) there was a correlation between subjects’ general English proficiency and their business writing proficiency; 2) teaching writing of banking texts significantly improved EDBI staff’s General English; 3) teaching writing of banking could significantly improve EDBI staff’s Business English proficiency; 4) teaching writing of banking could significantly improve EDBI staff’s Business English proficiency more than GE proficiency.
Highlights
Despite the fact that ESP has been widely used over the last three decades, recently there have been considerable debates on its meaning
The present study has been conducted with the purpose of exploring the relationship between EDBI staff's General English proficiency and their technical English Writing as well as the way each English for Specific Business Purposes (ESBP) and general English (GE) courses affect their writing skill
The findings indicate that: 1) there was a correlation between subjects’ general English proficiency and their business writing proficiency; 2) teaching writing of banking texts significantly improved EDBI staff’s General English; 3) teaching writing of banking could significantly improve EDBI staff’s Business English proficiency; 4) teaching writing of banking could significantly improve EDBI staff’s Business English proficiency more than GE proficiency
Summary
Despite the fact that ESP has been widely used over the last three decades, recently there have been considerable debates on its meaning. With the continuing globalization of markets, widespread recognition of the need for improved General English skills (i.e. writing, reading, listening, speaking) have been growing among banking and finance professionals in Iran. The demand for training courses/materials and assessment system tailored to their specific English language needs is growing in Iran's banking and financial sector. As Yarmohammadi (2005), points out ESP teaching in Iran can be characterized as "language for no specific purposes” since it follows no specific purpose in most of ESP contexts at Iranian Universities. It is being taught through very limited resources to large classes of learners who have no motivation. This can be due to the fact that the www.ccsenet.org/elt
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