An Analysis of Engineering Students’ English Language Needs

Conducting needs analysis is a prevalent phenomenon in designing curriculum in language teaching and learning. This paper explored the English language needs of engineering students at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh vis-à-vis four basic language skills. Moreover, this paper tried to shed some light on the gaps between learners’ present level of competence and target needs. This study followed the mixed approach (both quantitative approach and qualitative approach) to collect data through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions. Under the random stratified sampling method, the study collected data from 99 undergraduate engineering students and 15 EFL teachers from different universities in Bangladesh. The findings of the study revealed that engineering students felt the ardent need for all the four major language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). The findings also addressed the needs of the subskills regarding each language skill. Additionally, the offered courses were not adequately addressing the language needs of the students. Moreover, the duration and number of English language classes were not sufficient to meet the needs of the engineering students. Based on the findings, this study made some recommendations to minimize the gaps between engineering students’ present and target needs of the English language.

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Information Technology Students’ Language Needs for their ESP Course

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ◽

10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.7n.2p.197 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 197

Author(s):

Parisa Balaei ◽

Touran Ahour

Keyword(s):

Information Technology ◽

Data Analysis ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

English Language ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Whole Process ◽

Technology Students ◽

Professional Needs ◽

Language Needs ◽

Information Technology Students

The purpose of this study was to find the needs of Iranian undergraduate Information Technology (IT) engineering students for their ESP course. To this end, a needs analysis questionnaire was administered to 30 undergraduate IT students to elicit information about their needs in English language at Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch. The results of data analysis revealed that among four skills reading was the highly needed skill followed by writing. It was also found that a majority of participants were dissatisfied with the current ESP courses for undergraduate students. This, in fact, indicated that ESP curricula have not yet been successfully developed in satisfying the students’ professional needs in target situations. Findings point to the fact that ESP and its teaching in Iran has to undergo serious rethinking not only in the content of the course but also the whole process of teaching the language. The findings can help course designers to both put much more credit for ESP courses, and consider appropriate and suitable materials which can give useful information to the students. It can also help ESP teachers to meet the language needs of their students.

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Vocabulary demands for engineering students studying English in Russia: Comparing ESP course materials across three engineering disciplines

Global Business Languages ◽

10.4079/gbl.v20.9 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 ◽

Author(s):

Tatiana Nekrasova-Beker

Keyword(s):

English Language ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Chemical Engineering ◽

Thermal Power ◽

Language Instruction ◽

Vocabulary Size ◽

Unique Challenge ◽

Language Courses ◽

Specific Discipline ◽

Language Needs

With English language instruction becoming increasingly more specialized in higher education institutions around the globe, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) practitioners are facing a unique challenge in developing language courses that require considerable knowledge of a specific discipline in order to make it applicable to students and to meet their specific language needs. In the case of Engineering, which is the target discipline in this study, substantial empirical research has been published describing general discipline-specific requirements as well as common challenges that second language (L2) students face in various pedagogical contexts (e.g., Kaewpet, 2009; Pritchard & Nasr, 2004; Rowley-Jolivet, 2015; Rozycki & Johnson, 2013). Yet research investigating the vocabulary demands of pedagogical materials utilized in various sub-fields within the same discipline is limited. Therefore, the present study examined the extent to which the vocabulary demands of the pedagogical materials employed in ESP courses in Thermal-Power, Computer, and Chemical Engineering in Russia were comparable across the courses and achievable for the students. The results indicated that vocabulary coverage varied considerably across the three disciplines, with Chemical Engineering texts requiring the largest vocabulary size for adequate comprehension. The implications of the study for materials development and teaching ESP courses in various Engineering sub-fields are discussed.

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Analysis of the English Language Needs of Students at the Russian Technological University

RUDN Journal of Psychology and Pedagogics ◽

10.22363/2313-1683-2019-16-1-88-100 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 88-100

Author(s):

Olga G Rossikhina ◽

Polina V Ermakova ◽

Olga A Aleshchenko

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

English Language ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Course Design ◽

Real Life ◽

Oral Communication ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Language Needs ◽

Technological Universities ◽

English Competence

The article looks into the English language needs of engineering students and young graduates at one of the leading technological universities in Russia - NUST MISiS. The authors used a mixed methodology approach to explore how often and in what real-life situations current and former students use the English language. 107 paper questionnaires were completed by master’s degree students in class and the answers were counted; 123 responses were received online from 2015 and 2016 graduates and processed statistically; 17 structured interviews with college administrators and subject professors were recorded and then coded for the main categories. The results demonstrate that despite dramatic changes at NUST MISiS under The Competitiveness Enhancement Program 5-100, good English competence is not a priority, with the majority of young graduates being ‘unsure’ about its benefits for their career and some administrators calling it ‘the least required competence’. However, the English language needs vary across subject departments. Thus, students majoring in new materials and programming use English on a regular basis, while economists and metallurgists might not really need it in both studies and future job. Overall, the most required skill is reading, and the least used ones are oral communication and academic writing in English. The authors discuss how orientation on potential rather than actual needs can affect the ESP/EAP course design in the context of engineering education in Russia.

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Developing disciplinary discourse in a first-year engineering course: The DELNA initiative

Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie ◽

10.31468/dwr.909 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 31 ◽

pp. 126-135

Author(s):

Faye D'Silva ◽

Penny Kinnear

Keyword(s):

Language Proficiency ◽

English Language ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Academic Language ◽

Academic Literacy ◽

First Year ◽

Discursive Practices ◽

First Year Students ◽

Disciplinary Discourse ◽

Language Needs

First-year students in higher education settings tend to face ongoing challenges with variations in discursive practices and genres within their discipline. Within this context, a Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) was administered to first-year engineering students to assess the strengths and needs of their ability to navigate academic language. The purpose of this paper is to report on our initiative to support student’s development of academic literacy, specifically their disciplinary language proficiency through the implementation of pedagogical support activities.

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Disciplinary differences in the language needs of engineering students in Iran: a cross-disciplinary analysis

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education ◽

10.1108/jarhe-05-2020-0118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Razieh Gholaminejad

Keyword(s):

Educational Level ◽

English Language ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Chemical Engineering ◽

Language Skills ◽

Target Language ◽

Needs Analysis ◽

Academic Disciplines ◽

Content Type ◽

Language Needs

PurposeAlthough English for academic purposes (EAP) courses are vital components of engineering disciplines in the universities of Iran, studies investigating engineering students' English language needs are infrequent, and even more infrequent are studies comparing how the students of different engineering disciplines vary in their English language needs. Research demonstrates that students of different disciplines have different language needs, which requires competency in different language skills (Soruç et al., 2018). However, in the majority of Iranian universities, students of different engineering disciplines are taught similar subskills, through similar teaching methodologies and textbooks. With the twofold purpose of identification and comparison of the students' language needs and weaknesses, this study focuses on the perceptions of Iranian students of electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels of their present language abilities and target-situation language needs.Design/methodology/approachOnline surveys regarding language needs and self-assessments were completed by 194 undergraduate students and 189 postgraduate students studying at Sharif University.FindingsWhile only educational level was found to have a significant effect on the perceptions of the respondents of their target needs, both educational level and discipline had a significant effect on the perceptions of the students of their present level of language proficiency. Furthermore, almost equal attention to the four language skills were considered necessary by the respondents, who also held that the number of credits devoted to the EAP courses was insufficient. A further finding was that the majority of the undergraduates required that the EAP courses be oriented toward English for specific purposes (ESP), whereas almost half of the postgraduates preferred that the EAP classes be geared toward general English.Originality/valueResearchers have so far analyzed the language needs of students of a number of academic disciplines. This study adds to the existing literature of needs-analysis by comparing the engineering students' present abilities and target language needs. This study is different from the existing publications on language needs-analysis in two ways. First, through a comparative perspective, a profile of engineering students' language needs is obtained, which can serve as a new database for curriculum developers and material designers of engineering programs. Second, investigating whether the students' perceptions of their language needs are affected by their educational levels and disciplines is a topic for which there is little information at present.

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Needs Analysis in ESP Context: Saudi Engineering Students as a Case Study

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ◽

10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8n.6p.58 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 (6) ◽

pp. 58

Author(s):

Hashem Ahmed Alsamadani

Keyword(s):

Data Analysis ◽

English Language ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Structured Interview ◽

Needs Analysis ◽

Language Needs ◽

Observation Protocol ◽

Academic Year

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. Against this background, this study was undertaken during the academic year 2015-16 to define the English language needs of engineering students (N= 200) majoring in civil engineering and industrial engineering. The data of this study was collected from different sources, including a classroom observation protocol, a questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview with both ESP and subject-matter 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. It has been also reported that writing and reading along with speaking skills were needed more than others. The data analysis helped to determine the most important language tasks in the context of engineering studies. Finally, a call was being made by both ESP and SM teachers to enhance the quality of the ESP course taught to engineering students by offering relevant suggestions. Based on these findings, the present study concluded with implications for course designers and recommendations for future studies.

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British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Students’ Manual: A Critical Analysis of the Coursebook Taught at Pakistani Universities

University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature ◽

10.33195/jll.v3i1.104 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Language Learning ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

English Language ◽

Language Teaching ◽

Language Skills ◽

Primary Source ◽

English For Academic Purposes ◽

Target Language ◽

Teaching Principles ◽

Language Needs

English for Academic Purposes course focusing on the academic language needs of students is a subfield of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It is a type of specialized course to integrate specific subject matter, language content, and material based on learners’ needs. The study aims to evaluate the British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) coursebook in terms of content, sequencing, learners’ autonomy, motivation, feedback and focus on language skills. Furthermore, the study tries to provide a general perception of the usefulness and effectiveness of the coursebook for undergraduate students. The EAP Students’ Manual coursebook is used as a primary source for the data collection. The researcher has chosen Nation & Macalister (2010) model of language teaching principles to analyze and discuss the data. The study found the coursebook a useful, effective and an appropriate source of English language learning in terms of the investigated aspects of the book. The findings report that the coursebook provides practice and practical usage in all domains of the academically required English language skills. It helps the students to build language competency and to be more independent learners. In addition, it provides an opportunity to the learners to think in the target language, use the language more practically and learn it in a natural type of environment. The study concludes and suggests that the content needs to be supplemented with English language audios and videos presenting the students relevant documentaries and helping material in order to make the coursebook and the learning process more useful, effective, interesting and motivating. Furthermore, the study recommends that while choosing /designing a coursebook for a certain course, it needs to be evaluated following the various criteria and language-teaching-principles suggested by different language researchers.

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