English needs analysis of science and technology students at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar (UCAD)

For a number of years, there has been some concern about the status of English at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar (UCAD), Senegal, especially for upper level undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences and technology. This study analyzed the needs of students in the School of Science and Technology, also known as Faculte des Sciences et Techniques (FST), through questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis. The selected subjects were third- and fourth-year students (those in their final year of a bachelor's program or the first year of their master's). Both their specialist and English professors' views were also investigated, as well as the administration's (the heads of departments and institutes within the School and the Dean alike).;The analysis of the questionnaires, interviews and course contents revealed that the students at this point in their education within the School, as well as science and technology faculty, English faculty, and the School administration, believed that the content of the English courses needed to be aligned with the requirements for English use in their science and technology courses at each level, with some attention to preparing students for participation in professional conferences and seminars and other external contexts. They believed that the students needed both more English and a different type of English instruction than was currently available. In other words, they would need English instruction that is based on the theories and practices of the branch of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) known as English for Science and Technology (EST). In addition, students, faculty, and administration recommended the development of extracurricular activities that offer opportunities for real world practice. The study concluded with a recommendation for a redesigned English curriculum for upper level undergraduate and graduate science and technology students, using both communicative and constructivist approaches and drawing upon principles of situated learning/legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), distributed cognitions (Salomon, 1993), and genre analysis (Swales, 2004; 1990) or discourse analysis (Gee, 1992).