The purpose of this study was to develop criteria forrncourse design in English for aircraft technicians ofrnEthiopian Air Force. In the work of developing criteria, therne xisting syllabus and materials were analyzed to see whetherrnt hey were relevant to the needs of the learners f or usingrnEnglish in their academic studies and job performance.rnFor this study, questionnaires were designed andrndistributed to 6 different groups: English teachers, academi crnand technical subj ect teachers, aircraft students, employers,rnaircraft maintenance shop supervisors, and junior aircraftrnt e chnicians.rnInterviews were conducted with English teachers andrna irc raft students to crosscheck responses obtained throughrnques tionnaires .rnAn analysis of maintenance manuals for aircraft enginernand airframe , and of technical subject handouts was made t ornfind out the most frequent communicative functions andrnnotions students needed. An observation was also made on thernma intenance work o f the technicians to see what a c tivities,rnwhi ch language skills, and c ommunicative functions werernactually used.rnThe basic criteria drawn up fron the findings are thatrnthe syllabus should be topic-based while including subsyllabusrnof functions and notions, skills, vocabulary andrns tructure; the content should d e rive both from general andrntechnica l English; the materials should cover all the fourrnlanguage skills with emphasis placed in order of priority onrnreading, listening, speaking and vlriting skills, and thernme thodology should adopt a v a riety of more recent andrns uitable techniques for l anguage learning, such as pair orrngroup work problem- s o l ving activities.