Alireza Safaei - MA in TEFL, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran;

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is a learner-centered approach to teaching English which focuses on developing communicative competence in specific disciplines and professions. The English language is also considered a fundamental skill for police forces that guard land and sea borders or participate in international competitions of police forces. Although there have been needs analysis studies on the language needs of police forces in Iran, little research has been conducted on the existing teaching resources. This study reports an analysis of two ESP course books specially developed for police forces, i.e., English for the Students of Special Police and English for the Students of Coast Guard, in Amin Police University regarding cognitive load in language skills and subskills. Both intra- and inter-coder reliability tests were carried out to ensure the consistency of the obtained data. The overall results unveiled that both series focused on the development of LOTS learning objectives. These findings showed that English for the Students of Special Police totally leaded improvement on LOTS, while English for the Students of Coast Guard was pertinent to a few numbers of LOTS activities. These findings were discussed with those of the related literature. In conclusion, some suggestions are proposed for material developers to rectify the materials and carry out further investigations.

English for specific purposes, English for police forces, material evaluation, revised Bloom’s taxonomy.