A Corpus-Based Study for the Identification of ESP Learning Needs of Business Students

Abstract

General English language learners can generally communicate well, but their vocabulary in
specific fields is normally limited. This study aims to demonstrate the use of a specific language
corpus for identifying the learning needs of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students in
Pakistan. For this purpose, two hundred fundamental textbooks from the field of business studies
are selected and processed by using appropriate software, and a list of technical words is generated.
The data extracted from the corpus helps to identify the learning needs of business students in
terms of technical vocabulary. The study shows that the corpus is an effective tool to identify the
ESP needs of learners. The study suggests the dire need to adopt corpus-based teaching and
learning methodologies to cater to the ESP learning needs of the learners. Moreover, this corpus
can serve as a basis for designing a lexical syllabus for ESP learners in Pakistan.