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FINAL PROJECT
By:
AZHARIA KHALIDA
18178003
Lecturer:
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
POSTGRADUATE PROGRAM
UNIVERSITAS NEGERI PADANG
2019
THE ISSUES ABOUT THE ROLE OF ‘NEED ANALYSIS’ IN
DESIGNING SYLLABUS AND PREPARING THE MATERIALS
FOR THE ESP STUDENTS’ BY THE TEACHER BEFORE THE
LEARNING PROCESS IS RUNNING
Azharia Khalida
18178003
Postgraduate Students’ of Universitas Negeri Padang
Azhariakhalida6@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
This analysis was conducted by the aim to analyze the importance of ‘need analysis’
in designing syllabus and preparing the suitable materials based on the students’ need
in the actual situation that happen in learning process. Furthermore, to get the
information, the writer analyzed five articles as the data sources. There aretwo
research questions in this study: 1.What is the role of Need Analysis in designing
syllabus and preparing the materials for the ESP students’ by the teacher before the
learning process is running? 2. The common problems that are faced by the ESP
students? As the result, Need Analysis is very crucial in English language teaching,
especially in ESP. Then the common ESP students’ problems in learning are
grammatical, vocabularies hence they also face problems in writing and listening
skills.
"How is ESP different from EFL?" The major difference between ESP and
EFL lies in the learners and their purposes for learning English. ESP students are
adults who already have some familiarity with English and are learning the language
related functions. ESP is an approach to teach English for specific purposes, which is a
ESP focus means that English is not taught as a subject divorced from the students'
real world; instead, it is integrated into a subject matter area important to the learners.
In another word, the main goal of ESP is dealing with the usefulness of English in
fieldwork.
(1987:54) state the meaning of need in relation to language teaching as ‘the ability to
comprehend and/or produce the linguistic features of the target situation' Indeed, need
analysis is a starting point in ESP especially for designing ESP, materials, syllabus
and so on. Need analysis is the main core. Before designing process, need analysis
must be done because through need analysis, the designers will investigate, determine
and know what actually needed by students, market, and other aspects. Actually what
is need analysis? Some experts propose some definition about need analysis. Iwai et al
(1999 as cited by Songhori, 2007:2) argue that need analysis is activities that are
involved in collecting information that will serve as the basic for developing a
curriculum that will meet the needs of particular group of students. It’s supported by
Johns (1991 as cited by Songhori, 2007:3) claims that needs analysis is the first step
in course design and it provides validity and relevancy for all subsequent course
design activities. It means that need analysis is important and it’s the key of ESP
Unfortunately, most of the teacher in teaching ESP toward the learners doesn’t
pay attention to do need analysis before teaches the materials of ESP by the aims to
meet the learners need and purpose with the materials that will be delivered by the
teacher. This problem issue is becoming one of the serious problems that are faced by
the ESP’s students/learners. So, related to the cases the researcher wants to conduct
the research, the research questions that are used in this research such as:
1. What is the role of Need Analysis in designing syllabus and preparing the
materials for the ESP students’ by the teacher before the learning process is
running?
III. METHODS
This study is a descriptive study using secondary sources to do document
analysis. The sources of this study are books, articles, and five articles that were
analyzed. The writer read and reviewed the related articles to get the data and then
analyzed.
IV. FINDING AND DISCUSSION
a. Findings
First, Indrasari (2016) conducted the research about English for Specific
IAIN Raden Intan Lampung in The Academic Year of 2015/2016. This study involved
50 students at the second semester of physics education students of IAIN Raden Intan
Lampung, and 4 ESP lecturers who taught ESP for physic students in the academic
year of 2015/2016. The data were in the form of qualitative data which are taken from
the interview and the questionnaire. In this research she found that there are some
important aspects that has been revealed through need analysis which are very
beneficial for designing the course, such as: (1) the skills that physics students most
needed is grammar, since most of the students thought that grammar is the most
difficult element to be achieved, (2) the situation where the physics students use
English most is reading numerical symbols , (3) the physics students preferences
regarding useful activities for learning english is pair work, and (4) the topics the
physics students want most to learn is mechanics and relativity. She also suggested
that course designers or lecturers can design the ESP course, especially English for
undertaken to define the English language needs of engineering students (N= 200)
majoring in civil engineering and industrial engineering. The data of this study was
teachers (SM) at Umm Al-Qura University. Results of the data analysis offered
significant insights as to the teaching of ESP course. The study revealed that receptive
skills (i.e., reading and listening) were mostly focused on in ESP classes. Then the
researcher also argue and suggest about a number of recommendations were offered to
upgrade the ESP course for engineering students. A highly structured ESP course for
directly from the learners’ discipline should be framed. Such a course, if based on a
mastering both academic and subject-matter specific aspects of the target language as
well as motivate students to become actively involved in the process of learning. That
is, a needs-based syllabus is expected to accommodate for ESP needs in terms of skills
Third, the study was conducted by Dewi at SMK Negeri Pogalan Trenggalek
in the 2013/2014 academic year. The study was designed as a case study and
concerned on qualitative data, which reflected what actually happened in the area. The
principal, the English teachers and students are placed as the key informants. The data
documentation and observation. The data were analyzed by employing two methods,
those are: descriptive qualitative and descriptive quantitative. There are two problems
in this study that can be seen from two perspectives; syllabus designing and students’
needs analysis. From the perspectives of syllabus designing, the problem arises on
defining a syllabus typically as the content standard which is commonly and formally
provided by the higher authority (i.e. Ministry of National Education). In evidence, the
problems. Moreover, from students’ needs analysis perspective, teachers define Target
Situation Analysis (TSA) mainly as the content of students’ subject matters of their
majors rather than students’ linguistic performance after finishing the course. Further,
analysis of this research, an essential point that considerably needs to be noticed is that
the English syllabus, which was taught at SMK Negeri Pogalan Trenggalek in the
2013/2014 academic year, was not based upon students’ real needs. The term real, in
this case refers to the evidence that English syllabus was concerned with only the
surface needs of learners. There are indicatives that show up the evidence. First,
English teachers seem to have less concept of providing relevant English for students
who study at specific area of competence. Second, lack of facilities, energy and fund
English that is strongly needed while they have finished completing the course.
The fourth research was conducted by Lee (2016) entitled Principles and
the study, including English majors and non-English majors. The major findings
depicted the needs perception held by the students were at very high level, indicating
students realized that four English skills were all important and needed to be much
improved to help with employment advantage or the future job performance. Still,
more than half of the students did not expect to obtain English-related jobs after
graduation, which may indicate their view of current situation of traditional industries
in Taiwan. And students at higher proficiency level held more interest in English
learning than those at lower level, which showed the importance of motivation and the
inspiration of learning achievement. Last but not least important, among four language
skill needs, listening skill was the most need one, followed by writing skill, and these
think and perceive that the productive skills need to be much more improved.
The last study by Kheider (2017), in this study the participants were 70
Finance and International trade students’ and 5 teachers (3 teachers who are currently
teaching English at the department of Commercial sciences and 2 teachers who have
an Experience teaching ESP) of Biska University, Algeria. The research about the role
of Needs Analysis in ESP course Design and researcher used a descriptive research
method including a questionnaire and an interview was used to collect the data about
the research area. The questionnaire revealed Finance and international trade learners’
dissatisfaction with the current English courses and their need to develop productive
skills proficiency level. Whereas, the analysis of teachers interviews revealed that
emphasize the vital role of needs analysis that all English teachers should be aware of
before designing courses. An interesting conclusion had been drawn on the basis of
teachers’ interviews that all teachers confirmed the idea of conducting Need Analysis
(NA) in ESP instruction. They believed that NA helps learners develop their
proficiency level in the target language and allow teachers achieve their objectives
instruction through training teachers to design effective ESP courses that meets
learners’ needs.
b. Discussion
teacher/instructor at the first time before going to teach the materials. Needs analysis
can be a vital asset for teachers of English for specific purposes (ESP) to identify their
learners’ key requirements or needs and determine the areas in which they are lacking
skills.
ESP learning process are based on two basic distinctions in need analysis, they are:
target need (what the learner needs to do in the target situation) and learning need
a. Target Need
There are three components in target need, those are: necessities, lacks, and
wants: 1) Necessities: what the learner has to know in order to function effectively in
the target situation. 2) Lacks: what the learner haven’t known. 3) Wants: the learner’s
about the target situation and the attitudes towards that situation of the various
b. Learning Need
The knowledge and ability that the learners require in order to able to perform
So, need analysis roles as tools to know the students strengths and weaknesses
of English proficiency, the students’ attitude towards English, the language item,
skills, and subject knowledge which the students need most for their present and future
activities as a physicists.
Even though, for the teachers/instructors that teach ESP for formal education
such as Vocational High School have truly a dilemma. The dilemma caused of they
have a syllabus was typically defined similarly to content standard, which was a
subsection of the available curriculum. Unfortunately, the English syllabus was not
designed based upon learners’ needs analysis in joining the course. As the higher
authority designed the syllabus, teachers thought that it would be wasting time to
analyze learners’ needs. This was because a syllabus has been identically similar to the
content standard, which provide teaching materials and becomes a subsection of the
curriculum. In addition, the existence of UN was likely forced the teachers to propose
the teaching for UN. Thus, it was quite reasonable for them not to carry out an
analysis on students’ needs in enrolling in their courses, although the central authority
provides opportunities to establish an adaptation and development on the existing
Second, the common problems that faced by the ESP students’ in learning
process.
Commonly, the learners of ESP are categorized as adult aged. The students’
usually already have an English basic since they are not really blind with the English
language. However, the ESP students have the problematic with grammar structure in
which English Grammar is complex, making it difficult to remember, master and use
logically. Grammar is extremely important. Incorrect use of grammar can confuse the
person someone is speaking to and even change the meaning of what he/she is
subject is quietly different with general English, so that’s why ESP students face the
noticeable to anyone who's first language is English, though it doesn't often change the
meaning of the text, it does weaken it. Then, cause of the students face problem with
grammatical and vocabularies directly the students will also face the problem in
especially in ESP. By conducting need analysis, the ESP lecturer or the course
designer can get the detail information about students’ need in which it plays an
important role in designing the materials that will be given to the learners. Need
analysis helps the lecturers or the course designer to do concept mapping in the ESP
course with a clear focus. However, the teachers in Vocational High School face
dilemma problem about need analysis of students cause of syllabus that is used as
guided in learning process already design by the high authority based on the standard,
as the alternatively the teachers give the extra time in giving the materials to fulfill a
Furthermore, based on the findings of the researches above the writer suggest
Kheidir, M. (2016). The Role of Needs Analysis in ESP Course Design. People’s
Democratic Republic of Algeria. 1-73
Lee. C. L. (2016). Principles and Practices of ESP Course Design-A Case Study of a
University of Science and Technology. International Journal of Learning,
Teaching and Educational Research, 15 (2). 94-105.
Mary. S & Bowman. B. (1986). ESP: English for Specific Purposes.Washington D.C:
Peace Corps
Songhori.M. H. (2008). Introduction to Need Analysis. English for Specific Purposes,
27 (3), 21-25