Needs Analysis Of Maritime English For English Majors In Dalian Maritime University

Recently,the development of marine transportation and shipping industry promotes language exchange which is a decisive factor related to ships,seafarers,environment safety in maritime world to be of crucial importance.Maritime English,classified as one branch of English for Specific Purposes(ESP),has been strongly believed as a universally accepted working language in shipping group.Accordingly,the importance of the role that Maritime English plays has been recognized by more and more maritime schools and enterprises.The main issue of Maritime English teaching is curriculum design,and ESP researchers consider that needs analysis is the first procedure for curriculum design. However,for a long time,needs analysis proves to be an overlooked procedure in Maritime English teaching in China.The thesis,with 73 seniors from English department as research subjects,aims to understand English majors' target and learning needs,their points of view on teaching method and current Maritime English teaching material through the data collected by questionnaire and interview.Results indicate that most of English majors hold a positive attitude toward Maritime English learning.They believe it is necessary to learn Maritime English for their future work;half of them find them having difficulty in translating maritime materials due to lack of relevant knowledge.Because of the distinctive feature of Maritime English,it is their expectation that the teaching activity should be in teacher's explanation as the main form complemented with the use of multi-media.Students are generally satisfied with the course intensity and difficulty but less satisfied with the content somehow outdated for them,and they hope the teacher possesses operational maritime experience to compile relevant books useful to them according to actual situation.Besides,they hope more relevant Maritime English courses with longer learning periods will be available for them when they are sophomore or juniors in Dalian Maritime University. Finally,the thesis gives implications for Maritime English teaching and points out limitations of the research.This study attempts to offer some help for Maritime English teaching to improve the curriculum design and to better meet English majors' actual needs.