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

FINAL PROJECT

By:

AZHARIA KHALIDA

18178003

Lecturer:

Dr. Zul Amri, M. Ed

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.

Key words: ESP, need analysis, syllabus, materials

 INTRODUCTION

I. BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH

"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

in order to communicate a set of professional skills and to perform particular job-

related functions. ESP is an approach to teach English for specific purposes, which is a

part of a larger movement within language teaching a way from a concentration on

teaching grammar and language structures to an emphasis on language in context. The

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.

Talking about ESP, it is related to need analysis. Hutchinson and Water

(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

because need analysis is a starting point especially in designing materials, syllabus,

teaching and learning model, evaluation and so on.

II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

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?

2. The common problems that are faced by the ESP students?

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

Purposes: A Need Analysis at The Second Semester of Physics Education Students of

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

Physics Students in IAIN Raden Intan Lampung, by considering that information in

order to achieve the most beneficial materials to the students.

Second research was conducted by Alsamadani (2016) this study was

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

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. 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

engineering, integrating academic skills with subject or field-specific skills, derived

directly from the learners’ discipline should be framed. Such a course, if based on a

pervasive and comprehensive ‘needs analysis’, is expected to facilitate the process of

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

at the macro and micro levels.

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

was gained from the informants by applying in depth interview, questionnaire,

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

existence of UN (Ujian Nasional/National Examination) makes teachers come into

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,

teachers define Present Situation Analysis (PSA) mainly as students’

strengths/weaknesses in following English course. Concerning the findings and

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

may also contribute to teachers’ reluctance in ideally facilitating students compatible

English that is strongly needed while they have finished completing the course.

The fourth research was conducted by Lee (2016) entitled Principles and

Practices of ESP Course Design-A Case Study of a University of Science and

Technology. The study is aimed to investigate the learners’ perspectives of perceived

needs on their ESP (English for Specific Purposes) course at a university of

technology. Two groups of 257 students of varying proficiency levels participated in

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

findings could be presented as a useful suggestion to English teachers that students

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

there is a strong agreement among teachers that English courses should be

predetermined by specific learners’ needs in a specific subject area. In that, they

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

successfully. Furthermore, they suggested the university involvement in ESP

instruction through training teachers to design effective ESP courses that meets

learners’ needs.

b. Discussion

According to findings above, it would be answer the research questions of this

research: First, the roles of Need Analysis.

Needs analysis is an importance thing that is need done by the ESP

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.

Furthermore, a significant reasons the needs analysis has an important roles in

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

(what the learner needs to do in order to learn).

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

view of the necessities of the target situation.

 The analysis of target situation needs is in essence a matter of asking questions

about the target situation and the attitudes towards that situation of the various

participants in the learning process.

b. Learning Need

The knowledge and ability that the learners require in order to able to perform

the required degree of competence in target situation. This information may be

recorded in terms of language items, skills, strategies, subject knowledge, etc.

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

curriculum considering the real situation and condition on their field.

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

communicating. Then, the second problem is vocabulary. The vocabulary of ESP

subject is quietly different with general English, so that’s why ESP students face the

difficult in vocabularies. Actually, by using vocabulary inaccurately is incredibly

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

writing and listening skills as stated by Wilson (2016).

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

In conclusion, Need Analysis is very crucial in English language teaching,

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

relevant English with the students’ needs.

Furthermore, based on the findings of the researches above the writer suggest

the government to make a training program for the teachers/instructors to design

effective ESP courses that meets learners’ needs.

 REFERENCES

Alsamadani, H. A (2016). Need Analysis in ESP Context: Saudi Engineering Students

as a Case Study. Advances in Language and Literary Study. 2203-4714

Dewi. U. S. (2015). Syllabus of Vocational High School Based on ESP Approach.

Dinamika Ilmu, 15 (2). 273-295

Hutchinson, T & Walters, A. (1987). English for Specific Purposes: A learner-centered

approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 183
Indrasari. N. (2016). English for Specific Purposes: A Need Analysis at Second
Semester of Physics Education Students of IAIN Raden Intan Lampung in The
Academic Year of 2015/2016. English Education: Jurnal tadris Bahasa
Inggris, 9 (1). 161-172

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:
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Songhori.M. H. (2008). Introduction to Need Analysis. English for Specific Purposes,
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Wilson, Kate (2016). 5 biggest challenges of learning English. http://www.omniglot

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