The paper introduces the key aspects of ESP materials selection and design. Firstly, it discusses the purpose of ESP materials, their functions and key characteristics, such as authenticity and specificity. Then it focuses on the issue of learners’ needs analysis and the role it plays in the process of working out ESP courses and collecting authentic, needs-specific course materials. The paper introduces needs assessment including such aspects as target situation analysis, present situation analysis and context analysis. The data are taken from the materials collected at students’ and post-graduate students’ questionnaires, observation and interviewing. The aim of the needs assessment is to design the syllabus for the students and postgraduate students majoring in Geodesy. The paper reveals the goals of the discipline “English for specific purposes” for students taking into account their professional distinctiveness. Special attention is paid to the development of tasks aiming at fostering generic skills by engaging students in various learning activities to help them learn how to learn. The key aim for preparing future engineers is to use learnercentered textbooks with communicative approach based on the learners’ need analysis.