Difficulties in Comprehending ESP Reading Materials Encountered by Business-Majored Students

It is indisputable that English for Specific Purposes plays an important role in helping students to excel in their future careers since it is likely that they would need to read specialized texts to perform work-related tasks. However, many undergraduates claim that they struggle to use the English language, especially reading skills. Therefore, this study aims at investigating the difficulties in comprehending reading materials provided in the ESP course encountered by business-majored students. In order to answer the research questions, the researcher distributed online surveys to 185 students to examine the difficulties that they experience while reading ESP materials and solutions that they consider as effective to overcome the challenges. Findings show that many participants claimed that they found it difficult to understand and memorize the meanings of technical terms. Moreover, long and complex sentences caused a burden for most of the undergraduates in comprehending ESP texts. To solve these problems, most learners aspire to improve their vocabulary and grammar knowledge. Furthermore, learners’ lack of interest and background knowledge of reading texts also hindered their reading comprehension. As an attempt to overcome the difficulties, the majority of respondents stated that they should read specialized texts that are related to their future jobs more often. Lastly, undergraduates admitted that they lacked reading skills (specifically answering comprehension questions and applying the skimming strategy) and that they would like ESP teachers to teach them reading strategies.