Graduate qualifying work

Needs Analysis

One of the crucial stages of ESP course design is identifying specific language and skills the group of language learners will need. The identification of language and skills is used in determining and refining the content for the ESP course. It can also be used to assess learners and learning at the end of the course. This process is termed “needs analysis”. Needs is actually an umbrella term that embraces many aspects, incorporating learners ’ goals and backgrounds, their language proficiencies, their reasons for taking the course, their teaching and learning preferences, and the situations they will need to communicate in.
Hyland (2006: 73) gave a broad, multi - faceted definition to needs analysis: Needs analysis refers to the techniques for collecting and assessing information relevant to course design: it is the means of establishing the how and what of a course. It is a continuous process, since we modify our teaching as we come to learn more about our students, and in this way it actually shades into evaluation – the means of establishing the effectiveness of a course. Needs Analysis can involve what learners know, don’t know or want to know, and can be collected and analyzed in a variety of ways. (qtd in Flowerdew, 2013:325) ESP course development passes through different stages that start by needs analysis, followed by curriculum design, materials selection, methodology, assessment, and evaluation. However, these stages should not be seen as separate, proceeding in a linear fashion. Rather, as noted by Dudley - Evans and St John (1998), they are interdependent overlapping activities in a cyclical process. This conceptual distinction is neatly encapsulated by the following diagrams from Dudley - Evans and St John (1998:121) showing how needs analysis is often ongoing, feeding back into various stages.

ESP teachers’ task of assessment is similar to any other areas of language assessment. First of all, language assessment practitioners must take account of test purpose, test taker characteristics, and the target language use situation. Also, they should accept principles of measurement, including providing evidence for test reliability, validity, and impact. Finally, professional language testers are bound by international standards of ethics which require, among other considerations, respect for the humanity and dignity of test takers, not knowingly allowing the misuse of test scores, and considering the effects of their tests on test takers, teachers, score users, and society in general (ILTA 2000).For example in our case of study in the paramedics school of Biskra, students passed two assessment test .The first one was a pre- test that includes grammar and vocabulary exercises to analyze their level in English before starting the lectures of technical English, than another test was passed to assess their new level after learning.
ESP tests are based on our understanding of three qualities of specific purpose language: first, that language use varies with context, second, that specific purpose language is precise, and third that there is an interaction between specific purpose language and specific purpose background knowledge. With regard to contextual variation, a doctor uses language differently from air traffic controllers. Furthermore, physicians use English differently when talking with other medical practitioners than when talking with patients, though both contexts would be categorized under the heading of Medical English.