Abstract
'Typically, an ESP course is designed to develop students' communication skills not solely for the office, but also for useful in a specific workplace. Unfortunately, ESP for Schools of Business at some South-East Asian universities is not being very effective in promoting students' performance in the workplace. Behind this backdrop, this paper explores learners' pragmatic workplace learning practices that impact on their profession and have immediate applicability to their professional responsibilities. This article, in other words, addresses the gaps between what students learn in ESP class and what they need in real workplace. The data were collected through questionnaires from 30 ESP teachers. The data were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The research results revealed that the current ESP in use fails to capture the learners' needs and skills in workplace communication. It, therefore, suggests that ESP textbook has to adapt the practical workplace needs related materials as well as supplementing extra materials through teachers' constant 'needs analysis'.