The Role of Content-Based Texts to Motivate Students

Abstract

In recent years a great number of books have appeared in various fields of ESP, and the number is increasing every year. These books are specially prepared and adapted for foreign students possessing varying degrees of language skills. Experts believe that the production of ESP books is a vital task that requires several stages and procedures. To produce these materials, special attention should be paid to the age of the learners their English background, their level of knowledge in specialist field and the teaching method. The best should be done to provide materials which enable the learners to increase their English proficiency, learn the required skills for communication, and achieve their terminal behavior. Since the majority of university graduates in Iranare not equipped with sufficient knowledge of English to read and understand the original specialized textbooks, this paper aimed to test the appropriateness of materials used in ESP classes, based on a study conducted at ChabaharMaritimeUniversity. The finding of this research rejected the null hypothesis, because the observed t. was 2.83 and the value of critical t.' with the 49 degrees of freedom at the .05 level was 2, and this signifies that the novel content based texts motivated the students and improved their English proficiency.