Taiwanese College Students’ Perceptions of Integrating Multimedia into ESP Courses

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the learning difficulties and the preferred learning strategies among Taiwanese college students while they were taking English for Specific Purpose (ESP) courses. Two different ESP courses are examined: one of the courses is an undergraduate Marketing English course and the other is an undergraduate Hospitality English course, both in a college of liberal arts and social science in the national university in Taiwan. The instructor in the ESP courses adopted the multimedia—integrated instruction. The multimedia—integrated instruction not only provided authentic materials for learners in the target ESP, but also offered students real situational settings and useful activities that based on individual need. The result of the study indicated that students’ self-learning effectiveness in both performance and linguistic skills were significantly improved. In addition, they reported satisfaction with the multimedia-integrated instruction. Thus, the multimedia—integrated instruction increase learners’ motivation and also offer a solution to learners’ problems in the development of ESP courses.