2025/08/26 by Foroozan Ravanpak, Ravanpak, Foroozan, Seyed Fouad Khatib +3
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning #English for occupational purposes #English for specific purposes #International Student and Expatriate Challenges #Multilingual Education and Policy #language training needs #mixed-methods research #municipality staff #public administration
paper · doi:10.71873/mslt.2025.1216042
openalex publication_date 2025/08/26 · openalex created_date 2025/12/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
In today's globalized environment, English is the professional lingua franca needed for effective public administration and international cooperation. This research aims to analyze the English language needs of Iranian employees working in municipalities, a population that is typically under-researched in English for specific purposes. The study followed a sequential exploratory mixed methods design, combining qualitative interviews and focus groups with a larger quantitative survey involving 213 employees. In the qualitative phase, five themes emerged: enhanced service quality, global integration, professional growth, improved communication, and task-based English instruction. The quantitative phase confirmed these themes, while demonstrating no noteworthy differences related to gender, education, proficiency level, or age, revealing overall agreement on the professional purpose of English across demographic groups. The integrated qualitative and quantitative findings show that proficiency in English represents an avenue for sociolinguistic mobility, enhances organizational competitiveness, and is ultimately an effective component of governance. Theoretically, this research contributes to the literature on English for occupational purposes in municipal administration and speaks to language as a component of sustainable governance. Practically, this research suggests the design of training programs that are relevant to the employees' context and include functional vocabulary to facilitate interaction, and the implementation of assessments to ensure that the employees professionally develop thier communicative competence in their institutions.