Assessing English Language Needs through the Lens of ESP - EFL Students' Perspectives

DOI

10.2991/conaplin-16.2017.11How to use a DOI?

Keywords

needs analysis; EFL context; students' perspectives

Abstract

ESP students are one of stakeholder informants in needs analysis. This paper reports on ESP-EFL students' perspectives of their target and present English needs by seeking information about their reasons and decisions in determining those needs. Thematic analysis using a conceptual framework of target and present situation analysis was used to analyse the qualitative aspect of the data from focus group interviews with a total of 18 accounting students in a tertiary vocational institution. The results of the study revealed that the students' target communicative needs were English conversational skills for social interactions; whereas, their occupational disciplinary need was accounting terminology mastery. Nevertheless, in the Indonesian EFL context with limited uses of English, their analysis provided evidence that they had limited knowledge of their target needs. Their reports on their learning needs and their wants for more sequential design of English courses in relation to excessive grammar provision and for the improvement of their limited knowledge of English accounting terminology provided insights not only into the type of language exposure they had received but also into the way they wanted to achieve their target needs. This study contributed to our understanding of their knowledge of English language use in the target occupational domain and the factors that exerted greater influence on their determination of language skills and knowledge they needed.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Anik Kusnawati
PY  - 2016/11
DA  - 2016/11
TI  - Assessing English Language Needs through the Lens of ESP - EFL Students' Perspectives
BT  - Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Applied Linguistics (CONAPLIN 9)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 52
EP  - 57
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/conaplin-16.2017.11
DO  - 10.2991/conaplin-16.2017.11
ID  - Kusnawati2016/11
ER  -