English for Specific Purposes Curriculum Design for Nursing Students in Federal Medical Centres in North East Nigeria

Nursing professionals in Nigeria require specialized English language competencies for clinical documentation, patient communication, professional report writing, and international certification examinations, yet the English for Specific Purposes curricula in many nursing schools remain generic and insufficiently mapped to professional language demands. This study develops and validates an ESP curriculum framework for nursing students at Federal Medical Centre nursing schools in Bauchi and Gombe states. A comprehensive needs analysis was conducted using three data collection instruments: a professional language needs survey administered to eighty practising nurses and twenty nursing educators, a genre analysis of twelve categories of clinical documentation currently used at the two Federal Medical Centres, and a focus group discussion with nursing school curriculum coordinators and matrons. Needs analysis findings identify patient handover reports, nursing care plans, medication administration records, and patient communication scripts as the highest-priority genre targets for an ESP curriculum. The proposed curriculum framework specifies six thematic modules, each integrating target genre reading, writing, and oral communication tasks in authentic clinical contexts, with language skills instruction embedded in professional content rather than treated as separate components. Assessment instruments aligned to IELTS nursing sub-test and NCLEX writing task formats are included as curriculum components to support students pursuing international certification. The curriculum framework was validated through expert panel review involving three ESP specialists and five nursing educators before final formulation. Keywords: English for Specific Purposes, nursing education, curriculum design, Federal Medical Centre, North East Nigeria.