Shiva Ghalandari
Mahboube Nakhle
Mohammad Naghavi

Teachers, course designers, and materials writers must be aware that for successful ESP learning, the incorporation of learners’ needs is considered to be a vital part of the syllabus. Furthermore, analyzing the specific needs of a particular learner group serves as the prelude to an ESP textbook evaluation. Hence, this article first aimed to investigate the relevance of ESP textbooks in terms of content and needs achievement in Reading and Writing of Medical Students in Shiraz Medical School, through a quantitative-qualitative study. A total of 82 junior students (43 females, and 39 males) answered a questionnaire administered to find out the students’ needs, abilities and facilities of the English language teaching and the availability of audio-visual aids. Extensive qualitative and statistical analysis of the data revealed that although learning special terms and expressions, among others, seem to be of absolute priority according to needs analysis, a big portion of the book was devoted to reading comprehension, grammar drills and throughout various forms of writing exercises. Speaking English with colleagues, pronunciations, and translating English into Persian, have been treated marginally. Hence, considering students’ needs, four ESP textbooks are appropriate books for the purpose of medical English for Iranian physicians, so that advantages where the content and the students’ needs are compatible cannot be ignored

ESP learning, textbook evaluation, Quantitative-qualitative study, Students' needs