Needs Analysis Of EAP For Science And Engineerinp Pstgraduates: An Ecological Approach

With the profound effect of globalization, English has assumed an increasinglyimportant role in advanced studies and research. Science and Engineeringpostgraduates in China are also faced with more academic tasks in media of English.However, the Postgraduate English Curriculum issued in1992lays more emphasison training learner’s language skills for general purpose, and does not provide enoughtraining to students’ academic English proficiency. Therefore, some domestic scholarssuggest reforming the current curriculum by introducing English for AcademicPurposes (EAP) courses into the postgraduate English education.As an independent discipline, EAP has emerged since1974. It is aninterdisciplinary and multi-faceted area within the wider field of English languagelearning and teaching (ELT), and is one of the most common forms of English forSpecific Purposes (ESP). It refers to language research and instruction that focuses onthe specific communicative needs of people in academic contexts. EAP courses canbe divided into English for General Academic Purpose (EGAP) courses and Englishfor Special Academic Purpose (ESAP) courses according to their different degree ofspecificity.EAP has become a new research focus in the field of ELT in China in the latestdecade. Many theoretical and empirical research has achieved some valuable results;however, due to the lack of needs analysis research, most EAP courses haven’tachieved satisfactory teaching results. As related literature shows, needs analysisserves as a preliminary foundation for an EAP course in an attempt to locate theobjectives of the course and to prepare the appropriate teaching activities andmaterials. Obviously, needs analysis is the foundation for the success of any EAPcourse and program.With the aim of finding out what kind of EAP courses are suitable for Scienceand Engineering postgraduates and whether an all-EAP curriculum is possible andnecessary for them, the present study has done a thorough and in-depth investigationinto Science and Engineering postgraduates’ needs for academic English and EAP courses based on Dudley-Evans&St. John’s ecological approach of needs analysisresearch.The researcher employs a mixed research design, i.e., both qualitative andquantitative methods are used. The quantitative part consists of two large-scalequestionnaire surveys with1185student participants and146supervisor participantsinvolved. Then personal interviews of academic English teachers and open-endedquestionnaire survey of students are conducted to confirm the research resultsobtained from close-ended questionnaire surveys. Meanwhile, it is stressed in needsanalysis research that various sources of information are of great significance to thereliable identification of needs. Therefore, in this study, three parties of participants,including students, EAP teachers and supervisors, are involved to form a needsanalysis triangle.All collected quantitative data are analyzed in the software package SPSS (16version) for some descriptive statistics, such as frequencies, mean value and standarddeviation. The qualitative data collected from interviews and open-endedquestionnaire are dealt by means of qualitative content analysis, following a sequenceof transcribing the data, coding for themes, looking for patterns and makinginterpretations.The major findings can be presented as follows:Firstly, academic English competence is of great meaning to Science andEngineering postgraduates for their study and research work. More than80%of thestudents say they are often encountered with academic English using situations, morethan90%of investigated supervisors believe academic English skills are importantfor students’ school research and future work. In addition, more than half of thestudent respondents think academic English is of more practical meaning thancomprehensive English to them.Secondly, there are great gaps between students’ existing academic proficiencyand the target proficiency. For example, less than30%of the student respondentsthink their academic English writing can meet the requirements for academic journalspublishing. The supervisor respondents also hold that large gaps exist between demands and postgraduates’ actual proficiency in academic listening, speaking,reading and writing skills (mean difference1.69-2.10), in which the biggest gap lies inacademic English writing skills, and speaking skill ranks the second.Thirdly, the student questionnaire results show their academic English learningneeds can be summarized as follows: they prefer such teaching activities as groupdiscussion, class presentation, real writing tasks; they welcome authentic academicmaterials; as to class size, nearly80%of students believe that reading and writingclass size should not exceed30people, and more than70%of them insist that nomore than20people is proper for listening and speaking class.Fourthly, according to the analysis of interviews with EAP teachers andopen-ended questionnaire survey of students, the current EAP courses actually belongto a kind of ESAP course, which can not completely meet students’ needs foracademic English learning. For one thing, its discipline-oriented content is too hard tostudents, which often leads to their low motivation; for another, these courses usuallyignore the training of academic English listening and speaking skills.Fifthly, an overall analysis of the four surveys conducted in this study indicatesthat it is necessary to establish an all-EAP English curriculum in which the EGP(English for General Purpose) courses are replaced by EGAP (English for GeneralAcademic Purpose) courses. The reason for this is that EGAP courses not only canwork as ‘bridge’ courses between EGP and ESAP, but may also help students enhancetheir academic listening and speaking skills. Meanwhile, the establishment of EGAPcourses can help make effective use of existing teaching faculty because Englishteachers are qualified to teach EGAP courses.