Lived Experiences of Iranian Archivists in a Phenomenological Study of a Multimedia-assisted Task-based ESP Course

This study investigated the effects of implementing multimedia on the lived experiences of Iranian archivists in an ESP course for Archival Science in Iran. The participants consisted of 23 archivists working in the National Library and Archives of Iran. Multimedia-assisted task-based instruction was employed during a 10-session ESP course. Due to the nature of phenomenological studies, at the end of the semester, the researchers conducted semi-structured, one-to-one interviews with all the participants to learn about their attitude toward implementing multimedia in ESP learning and to gain useful insights about their experiences during the learning process. The researchers followed the data analysis technique of familiarization, horizontalization, highlighting, and clustering as well as descriptive and Vivo coding. The process of data analysis revealed seven main themes of skill development, practical, challenging, personal, work-related, platform-related, and course-related experiences. Thus, it was concluded that the use of technology-based instruction in ESP courses could positively affect ESP learners’ experiences of professional language learning, which could persuade ESP stakeholders to meticulously examine the expectations and perceptions of learners in order to hold successful ESP courses.