English Needs Analysis Of Non-English Major Undergraduates In Northwest A&F University

A survey of the non-English major undergraduates in Northwest A&F University is conducted to investigate their needs to English courses and provide scientific data about needs to the individualized teaching reform and curriculum development. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are employed in the survey. On the one hand, an unstructured in-depth individual interview and large-scale structured questionnaire are used to investigate the individual needs of non-English major undergraduates in Northwest A&F University. On the other hand, the job advertisements of enterprises and some documents on curriculum requirements are analyzed to investigate their social needs.Through the above surveys, it is obvious that there are some specific needs of non-English major undergraduates for the English course in Northwest A&F University. First, students have complicated starting level and the different skills are uneven developed. Second, compared to the complex results of the starting level of students, they have a consistent high expectation of their English ability, especially communicative competence. Third, the enhancement English courses are necessary in college and should be diversified. In the terms of the social needs, different types of enterprises have different requirements to the employee and the requirements of administrators to the students'English levels are much higher than the general requirements. In all, the social expectation to the students'English levels is high.As the research shows, it is necessary to set a persistent needs analysis system and provide the regular and scientific needs analysis to the curriculum development; it is urgent to develop the students'communicative competence and CLT should be further popularized; College English courses should be diversified and the enhancement courses should be set as elective to meet the different needs of students.