English for Specific Purposes as a tool for developing a culture of professional development for masters in the field of process machinery and equipment

The analysis of engineering students' needs in English for Special Purposes (ESP) is considered as an effective tool to develop an ESP course that best suits the students' needs. Thus, the article answers the main research question about the need of an ESP course for Russian Master's students studying in Speciality 15.04.02, Technological Machinery and Equipment. The article aims to explore students' language needs and to identify concerned parties' opinions about an ESP course in an interdisciplinary research. The results of surveying English teachers allowed the authors to analyse the pedagogical situation and find out that most respondents do not follow the exact method in teaching English but combine traditional methods: grammar structure translation, communicative method and text translation method, language teaching and phonetic-linguistic method depending on the type of task. The authors point out the activities preferred in foreign language classes: grammar exercises and reading texts aloud, using materials and teaching aids developed by teachers and belonging to the academic field. The article highlights the role of the Mining and Transportation administration to attract qualified teachers, to provide the most appropriate materials in order to create a favourable linguistic and educational ESP environment. The article points out that the number of hours allocated to English language teaching should be increased and foreign language teaching should go beyond English for general purposes and expand in terms of the professional aspect. The data of the conducted analysis provide researchers with a clear picture of the current state of English language teaching at the Institute of Mining and Transportation of Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University; they also allow analysing students' needs, determining their attitude towards English language courses, and identifying problematic issues faced by students when studying books and articles on industrial and engineering sciences in English. This study highlights the importance of collaboration between foreign language teachers and subject matter experts, as in practice interdisciplinary collaboration between language and engineering departments is not popular. This study is based on a case-method scheme in which the target situation, the current situation, the learner factor and the learning content were analysed. This analysis was conducted in order to help higher education teachers develop a working programme of discipline for the successful implementation of an ESP course in a technical higher education institution.