A Study On Needs Analysis Of English Learning In Auto-Repair Departments Of Higher Vocational Colleges

With the development of world economy and China’s auto industry, auto-repair workersare in short supply, which makes the number of students choosing auto-repair as their majorincreases rapidly. Auto-Repair major becomes popular, especially in the HVCs whose trainingobjectives are students’ professional skills. In order to facilitate the connection of students’future careers with the development of world economy and auto industry, HVCs have offeredEnglish curriculum for students in Auto-Repair departments in succession. But most collegesjust teach what Basic Requirements for English Teaching Course of Higher VocationalEducation require, few of them consider the real needs of students in English learning.Hutchinson&Waters (1987) thinks every curriculum is set on the basis of analyzing thestudents’ needs. Cohen (2000) believes that needs analysis is a method of knowing about thestudents’ requirements for foreign language teaching, analyzing weaknesses in students’achievements, determining the problems in foreign language teaching, and finally finding themeasures to solve the problems. Our expert Shu Dingfang (2004) says that success of alanguage course teaching is determined by knowing the real needs of the students.From the above, the author thinks what to be taught and how to be taught in the process ofEnglish teaching should base on the students’ real needs of English learning, so needs analysisof English learning in Auto-Repair Department of HVCs is necessary.On the basis of having reviewed different experts’ definitions and classifications of needs,the conceptions, the procedure and the models of needs analysis, and studies on needs analysisabroad and at home, the author divides the study into two parts. In the first part, the author triesto find English learning needs on part of the in-school students in Auto-Repair Department onthe basis of Hutchinson&Waters’ model of needs analysis connected with the author’s teachingexperiences. In the second part, the author tries to find English learning needs on part of thegraduates from Auto-Repair Department on the basis of Hutchinson&Waters’ model of needsanalysis connected with our expert ChenBingbing’s social needs analysis model and theauthor’s teaching experiences. Questionnaires and the method of quantitative analysis are usedin both of the two parts of investigations.Through the comprehensive investigations of in-school students and graduates, the author got some findings, such as the weaknesses of their English foundations, their desires to improvethe skills of listening and speaking, realizing the importance of English, EGP and ESP etc..According to the above findings, the author puts forward some suggestions on Englishteaching in Auto-Repair Department of HVCs from the aspects of teaching focus, teachingmodel, teaching materials, teachers’ role and English course arrangement, which are not onlysuitable for improving English teaching of Auto-Repair Departments but also for improvingEnglish teaching of other departments of HVCs.