f9
Abstract
ESP or English for special purposes, emerged in the 1960s to cater to the specific linguistic requirements of learners in scientific fields and professional environments (Negro Alousque, 2016). Dudley Evans and St John (1998) assert that ESP is part of a broader trend in language instruction for specific goals. ESP textbooks are the primary and most important resources used for teaching English in academic settings in Iran. Assessing these resources can uncover their merits and drawbacks, thereby enhancing their overall quality. The objective of this study was to assess the quality of premade English for Specific Purposes (ESP) textbooks published by the Organization for Researching and Composing University Textbooks in the Humanities (SAMT), as perceived by ESP instructors in Iran. In order to achieve this objective, a total of 42 English for Specific Purposes (ESP) professors from five universities in Iran were selected to participate in the study using purposive sampling. We administered a 20-item questionnaire on evaluating ESP textbooks, which was created by Vahdatnia and Salehi (2020), to collect data. The results indicate that the participants had a positive evaluation of ESP textbooks published by SAMT in terms of practical concerns, compatibility with course objectives, skills and strategies, and content. However, they had a negative evaluation in regards to linguistic issues, subject matter, and layout. Concurrently, the textbooks were assessed impartially in relation to the activities they contained. Given the sections that received bad evaluations, we have also provided practical suggestions for revising or creating ESP materials.