ABSTRACT
Preparing ESP/EAP (English for Specific Purposes/ English for Academic Purposes) textbooks based on the communicative approach is a tempting desire for most English teachers, material designers and students as well as an ideal sought by SAMT (the only Iranian Center for Studying and Compiling University Books in Humanities). Therefore, the nature of such textbooks in Iran and several years of practice in motivating students to learn English through the Grammar-translation method make it challenging for material writers to shift to the communicative method in producing communicative-based textbooks. Hence, out of her own experiences gained by teaching ESP/EAP classes for more than 25 years, and following her cooperation with SAMT in publishing over FIVE textbooks, the author seriously reviewed most of these kinds of textbooks and came to identify three main obstacles, i.e. unskillful manpower, non-communicative based materials and heavy costs, in the way of reforming such texts. These hindrances have made ESP/EAP textbooks and courses counterproductive. Thus, this paper plans to put forth some techniques to make the textbooks much more based on the communicative approach, and also a few recommendations for appointing and employing qualified ESP/EAP instructors. Actually, the main objectives of this study are to analyze and find answers to the following questions:
1. What are the weak points of the existing textbooks?
2. What techniques can be used to really help produce communicative-based courses?
3. How are ESP/EAP textbooks taught in Iranian universities?
4. Who is better advised to be responsible for teaching these courses?
Keywords: English for Specific Purpose (ESP), English for Academic Purposes (EAP), Communicative syllabus, ESP materials developers, EFL situations.