A students' needs analysis of the English - Medium foreign trade operating skills course at faculty of Foreign Languages Ba Ria - Vung Tau University: Thesis

Abstract

As the primary goal of English for specific purposes (ESP) is to educate students to utilize English in specific job settings, it is critical for ESP course planners to be aware of student needs to conduct a requirements analysis to help curriculum designers in developing effective ESP courses or programs. Thus, a course without a requirements analysis lacks the specific and explicit goals needed to deliver the attention needed for clear and effective outcomes. ESP courses that are created without a needs analysis typically have too much or too little teaching to fulfill the needs of the students. To find out the reasons for former students’ poor English achievement and what and how the Business English program can be improved in the case of Baria-Vung Tau University, a proper needs analysis (NA) is needed. Therefore, this study used a model for Business English courses of Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), and Dudley-Evans (1998) to measure the current students’ needs as well as other stakeholders’ needs in terms of foreign trade operation skills. The research found out some valid results to answer the research questions why all stakeholders are interested in foreign trade operation skills course and whether it is a practical subject for English for business program. Future research may use this study as the basis to improve the intake of ESP students’ knowledge in order to accelerate the input of ESP learning and hopefully to shorten the learning time.