| As a student-centered and needs-based approach to college English education, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is becoming increasingly popular in the world. In contrast with general EFL programs, where students learn English without a particular focus in terms of its content, ESP programs are oriented towards learners’ specific needs in their subject study that will benefit their future work.Empirical studies on various ESP programs have mushroomed abroad for a long time. However, in China, even though ESP needs analysis studies have been conducted more frequently in recent years, these studies mainly focused on Business English while studies on scientific and technological majors, especially studies related to chemistry are few. This study, by surveying the current chemistry majors in Nanjing University of Technology, by investigating the graduated chemistry majors who are now holding jobs in more than two dozens of chemical companies in the whole nation, as well as by interviewing professors, the ESP teacher and the personnel staff, attempted a needs-analysis study on the ESP needs of students of chemistry.The overall purpose of this study, therefore, is to find the ESP needs of the college chemistry majors in the hope of proposing an ideal curriculum model that can better prepare students of chemistry for their career needs of English. Specifically, this thesis attempts to answer three major questions:(1) What is the status quo concerning college chemistry majors’English learning in school?(2) What are chemistry majors’ opinions towards their English courses in college?(3) What are chemistry majors’ ESP needs?All together204students from two departments in Nanjing University of Technology (103students from Department of Chemistry and101students from Department of Applied Chemistry) and86graduated students of chemistry filled in the questionnaires; besides, three chemistry major teachers, one ESP teacher of chemistry and one human resources director of a chemical company accepted the interview of this study. The data of the two questionnaires were coded by computer with the software of Excel and SPSS13.0. The whole processes of interviews were recorded by digital voice recorder and the researcher transcribed them afterwards.The results show a high consensus among the participants regarding the importance of learning English in college; however, the satisfaction rate towards the current college English courses is not high. The study has found that chemistry students’ major needs are work oriented. With the top purpose of learning English being benefiting work, chemistry majors highly welcome ESP courses, holding that school should offer ESP courses after one semester or two of foundation courses of General English; the courses should be arranged in smaller classes, with an elective status and with more class hours if possible. They also agree that ESP courses should train all the four English skills with a focus on speaking; they think that English-related activities which are frequently used in the workplace should be incorporated into ESP courses. The study has also found that textbooks which combine different kinds of materials, especially articles related to science and technology, materials related to chemistry majors’ work, materials that are related to learners’life interests, and materials which have interesting interactive activities for students to do are favored by chemistry majors. Based on these major findings and much researched teaching theory, the study has proposed a tentative curriculum model for chemistry major students in Nanjing University of Technology. The chemistry ESP curriculum can comprise four core courses, with General Chemistry English as the required foundation course while the other three, namely Chemistry English Reading, Chemistry English Speaking and Chemistry English Writing, as electives. |
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