چکیده:
Given the fact that few studies have investigated the English language needs of EAP students in Iran, the present study was an attempt to analyze the needs of Iranian EAP learners of Humanities and Social Sciences. To this end, 114 EAP learners at different educational levels (BA, MA, and PhD) and with different English proficiency levels (elementary, intermediate, and advanced) were asked to provide their responses to a questionnaire. Moreover, ten EAP learners and eight EAP instructors were asked to write narratives about their experiences in EAP courses. Their narratives were then analyzed based on Strauss and Corbin's (1998) systematic approach. The results revealed that the EAP courses did not pay the deserved attention to writing, speaking, and listening skills, while the coverage of the sub-skills (grammar and vocabulary) was successful. Moreover, it was revealed that the EAP textbooks were insufficient in terms of the inclusion of language skills, community-specific cultural issues and conventions, and the topical knowledge. The analysis of the EAP learners’ needs also showed that not all interaction types happened in the EAP courses. Furthermore, the analysis of the narratives of EAP learners and EAP instructors indicated that the EAP curriculum, EAP textbooks and also EAP assessment should include the four language skills, provide a communicative venue for EAP learners to practice their disciplinary issues, and design communicative materials. It can be concluded that the current EAP curriculum needs revision to fulfill the EAP learners’ present and target situation needs.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Furthermore, the analysis of the narratives of EAP learners and EAP instructors indicated that the EAP curriculum, EAP textbooks and also EAP assessment should include the four language skills, provide a communicative venue for EAP learners to practice their disciplinary issues, and design communicative materials.
By reviewing the previous ESP and EAP studies in Iranian context, it can be found out that the main reasons for the instruction of EAP and ESP courses are teaching reading and translation (Alimohammadi, 2003; Atai, & Shoja, 2011; Jodairi, 2005; Malmir & Bagheri, 2019; Soleimani, 2005;).
One reason for such inefficacy in EAP programs can be the lack of needs analysis research (Atai & Nazari, 2011; Soodmand Afshar & Movassagh, 2016) to obtain the target situation, present situation, and language needs of the EAP learners.
Table 1: Background information about the participants (View the image of this page) Instrumentation EAP Needs Analysis Questionnaire To address the main purpose of the current study which was to analyze the EAP needs of the students majoring in humanities and social sciences, a multidimensional questionnaire analyzing the EAP learners’ needs regarding language skills, language sub-skills, EAP materials, EAP assessment, educational EAP environment, and EAP learners’ perception of their needs was developed.
The results of the current study are in line with the findings of Esmaeili (2016), Mazdayasna and Tahririan (2008), Esfandiari (2015), Khany and Tarlani-Aliabadi (2016), and Malmir and Bagheri (2019) not show any statistically significant difference when the EAP learners’ disciplines (humanities or social sciences), educational levels, and language proficiency levels were also considered (Table 9, 10, and 11).