A Needs Assessment Approach To English For Specific Purposes (Esp) Based Syllabus Design In Bangladesh Vocational And Technical Education (Bvte)

This paper describes the initial phase of a needs analysis which is developed in the context of Bangladesh Vocational and Technical Education (BVTE) with the aim to identify the needs of a target group of learners and introduce English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course design. Although the compulsory English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses have been used at various programs of BVTE since 1996, they were not based on any systemic Needs Analysis nor have they been subjected to any evaluation. The paper also aims to conducts a Needs Analysis to obtain data which will be used to develop a meaningful, useful and beneficial, common core ESP programme for Bangladesh Vocational and Technical Board (BVTB) students. This process takes into account the needs of the various stakeholders involved including the policy makers, decision-makers, subject and language teachers and prospective employers. It mainly will make use of Hutchinson and Waters' (1987) Learning-centred approach, Holliday and Nunan's (1988) Needs Analysis description for conducting the Needs Analysis and specifying the content for a common-core ESP course. A mix method is adopted with questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, classroom observation and document study being the main data gathering tools, in order to ensure triangulation of data.


INTRODUCTION
English Language teaching and learning has been widely recognized as a global problem. In many developing countries this problem constitutes a serious obstacle to development and modernization. Globalization and development factors have made English the language of power, opportunity, status and prestige. After the 2nd world war, English is flourishing internationally as the language of communication, trade and economic advancement, and has gained worldwide prominence since technological and scientific developments have become more widespread in the English speaking world. To catch up with the momentum of such developments, most third world countries are putting their best efforts in learning the English language in order to penetrate the world of science and technology. In Bangladesh, a monolingual nation state which does not need a second language for internal communication, English is now in much demand (Choudhury, 2001).
However, this nation is now expending a considerable proportion of its limited resources to improve the teaching of English. Educational institutes are re-introducing English as a compulsory subject. English has made a comeback (Khan, 2000). Now most educational institutes are re-introducing English as a compulsory subject so that young Bangladeshis can be more proficient in the language and participate in global activities (Choudhury, 2001). The duality in the Bangladeshi situation of a zealous protectiveness of the mother tongue and of the avid promotion of English proficiency ranged from beginner to upper intermediate and advanced. There were also 4 language teachers who are interviewed for greater understanding the situation.
Triangulation of sources and methods (Jasso-Aguilar, 1999;Long, 2005) was also attempted in order to secure the validity and reliability of the research. Data were FROOHFWHG WKURXJK WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ TXHVWLRQQDLUH ZKLFK LQFOXGHG FORVHGand open-questions and semi-structured interviews were conducted with these students in an attempt to gain meaningful insights into the situation. There were no formal interview sessions with the teachers. They are interviewed indirectly via an informal online chat to clarify grey areas.
The data derived from the questionnaires were analysed by using descriptive statistical methods. Frequencies and percentages for all items of the questionnaires were obtained. The verbal data of the semi-structured interviews were analysed qualitatively.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Frequency counts and percentages are used to describe the finding and the data is presented in table form for easy reference.

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a) Skills use Frequency Figure 1 shows that out of the 14 students 9 (90%) claimed that they "often -very often" used the reading skill in their course of study. 8 (80%) respondents indicated they "oftenvery often" used the writing skill. Similarly, 06 (60%) respondents indicated that the listening skill is used "often-very often". Surprisingly only 03 (30%) respondents indicated outright that speaking was "very often" used in their course of study. Since English is the medium of instruction in their course this latter finding is unusual as the students are expected to use English all the time; classroom observations did not corroborate this finding since both students and teachers communicated in English. From the findings it appears that the students are aware of the academic importance of English; but they use the receptive skills (listening and reading) more frequently than the productive skills (writing and speaking). Classroom observations contradicted these findings since simultaneous and extensive use of all four skills was noted.
b) Difficulty faced in the language skills According to Figure 2 only 2 (20%) students claimed they "often" had difficulty with reading and 3 (30%) students stated they "sometimes" had difficulties. For the writing skill, 2 (20%) students claimed that they "often" faced difficulty; and 3 (30%) students stated that they "sometimes" did; 5 (50%) students stated that they "sometimes" faced difficulty in listening; 02 (20%) students claimed they "often" faced difficulty in speaking; and 05 (50%) students claimed that they "sometimes" faced difficulty in speaking. Apparently reading, writing and listening are not perceived as difficult; but as reading and listening are not formally evaluated perhaps they are unable to perceive the difficulty. Speaking appears to be the most difficult skill. The teachers' findings support these students' findings to some extent as most teachers perceived the students as "average" in all the skills except for speaking in which most teachers' perceived students as "weak".
c) Perceived importance of the skills for academic success

Figure 3: Students' perception of the importance of the skills in relation to academic success
According to Figure 3, 9 (90%) students perceived reading as a "useful -very useful" skill. For writing, 9 (90%) students stated it was "useful -very useful". Regarding listening, 4 (40%) students indicated that it was "useful -very useful". For speaking, 9 (90%) students stated it was "useful -very useful". From the findings it seems that students attach a lot of importance to all four skills in relation to academic success, particularly since the medium of instruction in this faculty is English, in addition all handouts, texts, examinations and lectures are in English. The teachers' findings support this finding as most teachers opined that English was important for the students' academic success.

Figure 4: the students' perception of the importance of the language skills after their graduation
According to Figure 4, 8 (80%) students indicated that reading would be "useful-very useful" for them after their graduation. For writing, 9 (90%) students indicated it would be "useful-very useful" for them. Regarding listening, 9 (90%) students indicated listening would be "useful-very useful". For speaking, all of the students 10 (100%) stated that it would be "useful-very useful" for them. The findings indicate that the students believe the receptive skills as well as the productive skills will be very important for them after their graduation. Oddly a small percentage (about 10%) of respondents stated that the skills would "not be useful"; this maybe because these students have not yet developed ideas about employment requirements. The employers' findings highlighted the importance of all the skills for employment. Furthermore, the fact is stressed that the participants have different expectations with respect to their need to use the target language, for study or professional purposes, which highlights the merits of needs analysis concerning tKH LGHQWLILFDWLRQ RI WKH OHDUQHUV ¶ QHHGV 2Q WKLV EDVLV FHUWDLQ GLIIHUHQFHV DPRQJ WKH UHVSRQVHV LQ WHUPV RI UDQNLQJ WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ reasons for using English can be justified. As such, the need is stressed for an ESP course, ZKLFK DGGUHVVHV WKH OHDUQHUV ¶ LPmediate needs as students in the context of BVTE.

The focus of the needs-based course
Moreover, it was indicated that the participants need a flexible approach to ESP syllabus design which provides practice in both the receptive and productive skills. Consequently, the needs-based syllabus document is expected to reflect their needs in terms of skills at the macro-and micro-OHYHO E\ VHOHFWLQJ DQG JUDGLQJ ³DXWKHQWLF PDWHULDOV´ &RZOLQJ 2007). The responses of the participants indicate the need for exposure to an integrated skills approach; however, due to time constraints, it is inevitable to prioritize the practice provided in each skill.
To conclude, although the complexity of adopting a needs-based approach to ESP cannot be ignored, needs analysis as a decision making process which informs course design specifications (Bosher & Smalkoski, 2002) is regarded as an indispensable component of any ESP course (Long, 2005).