Needs Analysis in ESP as a Motivator and Means to Optimise Academic ESP Courses (original) (raw)
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Needs analysis is a device to collect the information that will become the basis for designing an effective and efficient language course. Needs analysis may include target situation analysis, present situation analysis, deficiency analysis, strategy analysis, and means analysis. However, needs analysis should not focus only on learners, but should also consider “the views and roles of other stakeholders”, such as the institution, departments, and instructors (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Frendo, 2005). This paper describes the process of designing an ESP syllabus for undergraduate education students on the basis of the needs analysis conducted through (a) a questionnaire given to the students, (b) interviews with the instructors and the faculty’s management, (c) observations in the classroom, and (d) review of the documents. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, and resulted in the “target needs and learning needs” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). Target needs...
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The purpose of this study was to find the needs of Iranian undergraduate Information Technology (IT) engineering students for their ESP course. To this end, a needs analysis questionnaire was administered to 30 undergraduate IT students to elicit information about their needs in English language at Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch. The results of data analysis revealed that among four skills reading was the highly needed skill followed by writing. It was also found that a majority of participants were dissatisfied with the current ESP courses for undergraduate students. This, in fact, indicated that ESP curricula have not yet been successfully developed in satisfying the students’ professional needs in target situations. Findings point to the fact that ESP and its teaching in Iran has to undergo serious rethinking not only in the content of the course but also the whole process of teaching the language. The findings can help course designers to both put much more credit for ES...
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This paper describes the initial phase of a needs analysis project which was developed in the context of Greek tertiary education with the aim to identify the needs of a target group of learners and introduce needs-based course design. The findings of the study revealed the need for the development of a highly specific ESP language course with a clear focus on the target discipline, accountancy. There was also a call for the provision of ESP training which addresses the learners' immediate needs as students and their long-term needs as professionals in the accountancy business.
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Concepts and Measurements for Designing an ESP Course
The study aims to examine certain issues for designing an ESP syllabus as well as to investigate the perceptions of the students and their teachers that concerning the present course and how challenges, which face both students and teachers, are to be solved based on suggestions and recommendations accordingly. It is an exploratory study, that is, to discover the aspects of evaluating a program by involving both teachers and students to express their issues and views. The researcher followed quantitative and qualitative approaches to obtain his results in the form of validity and reliability of data. Therefore, he used three methods to collect the data, that is, questionnaire, interview, and classroom observation. The subjects of this study were of two types: the teachers who are either having experience in teaching ESP courses or teaching the current course (Commercial English) and the students who study diploma. The total number utilized in the study was fourteen teachers, twenty diploma students, and sixteen certificate students for the questionnaire. The interview, on the other hand, adopted four teachers, seven diploma students, and seven certificate students. The data obtained were analyzed using tables. The data collected by the questionnaire was analyzed through statistics (numbers) while the data collected by interview and classroom observation was analyzed in the form of descriptive interpretations. The findings of this study assured that the students face some problems at the polytechnic under the study such as the lack of some of the basic skills especially speaking skills. The study Hussein Hassan Ibrahim-Concepts and Measurements for Designing an ESP Course