an exploratory study of iranian esp learners’ communicative competence: developing a model

Taking a short glance at different realms of second language acquisition (sla) would reveal that communicative competence development has received less attention in comparison to other areas such as grammar, lexis or phonology and although a good deal of attention has been given to communicative competence since the last decades, it is still considered as a new, developing area in l2 acquisition. it is worth noting that there is lack of studies in developing a communicative competence model for esp students in a context like iran, which this study aimed to bridge this gap to discover esp learners’ perceptions of communicative competence (cc). in order to achieve the aim, qualitative case study research and its sub-category which is grounded theory was used. the sample of the present study included about 200 mechanic and computer engineering ma candidates (80 mechanic candidates and 120 computer engineering candidates) who were already studying their specific courses in english at university. both male and female learners completed the questionnaire (communicative competence questionnaire postulated by wiemann (1977) and took part in the interview to gather relevant information and data from the respondents. the results showed that esp students were reluctant to communicate due to the lack of knowledge on students’ turn and lack of suitable tasks and activities in the classrooms on teachers’ turns. furthermore, the results showed that increasing the level of linguistic/grammatical competence lead esp students to increase communicative and consequently professional competence in esp course.