The Language-related Tasks Between The University And The Business Workplace

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the cause of the gap existing between the university and the professional settings. ESP is introduced in different specialties in the Algerian universities. However, in the workplace, university degree holders encounter difficulties to accomplish Language-related tasks. The study was conducted in a private language school in a class of eight (08) adult learners receiving intensive instruction in Business English. The learners are 02 businessmen and 06 sales managers in private companies. A questionnaire was used as a data gathering tool to detect their motives to have such courses. Results reveal that their resort to ESP sessions in private schools is due to their failure to exploit their prior language knowledge to solve practical problems in the workplace especially problems related to business correspondence. Results led to the construction of pedagogical implications that highlight the importance of ESP and languages for specific purposes in general in equipping the present university students, the future workers, with the required language skills that will satisfy the professional settings’ needs. Recommendations focus on the necessity of having qualified and well trained ESP teachers at the Department of Economy and Management besides building a continuum between universities and the professional settings.