| In order to contribute empirically remedial data to the Al-Ahsa college-of-technology English program and its students' future English language needs, the purpose of this study was to utilize the basic guidelines of needs assessment for identifying English language needs of a number of Saudi business sectors and, in turn, the future English language needs of college-of-technology students. More specifically, the study investigated the extent of English language use at the participating business sectors, the required proficiency levels of the four English language skills for employees to perform their jobs efficiently and the rank of the four English language skills in terms of their importance to the participating sectors, and the frequency of the use of the four English language skills when employees perform/participate in certain job duties, activities, and situations.; Each business sector was given two identical questionnaires, one to be filled out by an employee and the other one by his supervisor. The supervisors' and employees' questionnaires contained twenty-four items. For each item, frequency and percentage of responses from supervisors and employees were calculated. In order to compare the perception differences between supervisors and employees, mean scores of items of ordinal scale for each group of respondents were compared using paired sample t-test and the Wilcoxon non-parametric test.; The study revealed that English is greatly needed in most of the participating business sectors and plays an important role in the professional career of the participants. The study also revealed that a "good" level of proficiency in the four English language skills is sufficient for most of the participating business sectors. Supervisors and employees were in full concordance that the most important and needed English language skills for their business sectors are listening, followed by speaking, reading, and writing. The results also showed that all of the four English language skills are highly used and needed in doing most of the suggested work tasks, activities, and situations. The frequency of the four English language skills used in the participating business sectors mostly ranges between "always" and "sometimes" depending on tasks, activities, and situations. |
