Research On Curricular Design Based On Students’ Needs Analysis

With the increasing frequent international communication and exchanges, English, an international language, has played a dominant role in the fields of politics, economy, medicine and technology. And People are learning English for specific purposes, for example, exchanging experience in science and technology, communicating in business or intending to become a tour guide. It is obvious that traditional English for general purpose (EGP) cannot meet people’s demand for learning English, so English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has arisen in this situation such as English for Science and Technology, Legal English, Tourism English, Business English and so on. Since the1990s, with the development of economic globalization, international communication in business has been increasing greatly and China’s participation in global economic activity is going into depth. More and more people are aware of the importance of Business English, and there is a growing demand for the talents who have a good command of Business English. Now more and more colleges and universities offer Business English programs in order to meet the demand for foreign-related economic talents in recent years.This research is carried out to make a survey on the existing Business English curricular design in higher vocational college. Dudley-Evans and St John’s needs analysis model is used as theoretical basis for designing the questionnaire. The analysis of the results of the survey aims to find out students’actual learning needs of Business English courses, and to provide suggestions for business English teaching. Two research questions are posed in this thesis. The first one is associated with finding out the needs and expectations of the Business English majors in actual teaching and learning situations. The second one is associated with finding out whether the existing curricular design has truly catered to their specific needs. The participants are124students majoring in Business English at Henan Mechanical and Electrical Engineering College. Ten of them are randomly selected for interviews. The two main research tools used in the investigation are questionnaire and interview. Based on Dudley-Evans and St. John’s needs analysis framework, the questionnaire and the interviews include eight parts:1) professional information about the learners;2) personal information about the learners;3) Business English language information about the learners;4) what the learners’lacks;5) language learning information;6) professional communication information about1);7) what is wanted from the courses;8) information about the learning environment. The thesis briefly summarizes three major findings of the research:learner’s information, Business English learning information, and learner’s attitudes and expectations. Based on the findings of the research, four pedagogical implications are discussed:emphasizing needs analysis, arousing students’motivation, improving teaching in classroom, adapting teaching materials and increasing opportunities of practicing Business English skills.This thesis is made up of six chapters. Chapter1is the introduction, in which the research background and the purpose and significance of the research are discussed. Chapter2deals with the literature review. Firstly, the concepts such as ESP, needs analysis, course design and curriculum are introduced, and then the related researches at home and abroad. Chapter3describes the research questions, participants, research methods and procedures for data collections and analysis. Chapter4reports the results and discussions of all the surveys by stating the qualitative and quantitative data collected from questionnaires and interviews. Chapter5discusses the major findings and pedagogical implications. Chapter6is the conclusion of the thesis. It points out the limitations of the research, and makes some suggestions for future research.