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ASSESSMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CREATION OF COURSE
MATERIALS FOR ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE FOR STUDENTS
MAJORING IN SUBJECTS OTHER THAN ENGLISH
Khuloud Mustafa Alouzi University of Zawia.
Zawia.
Libya alozzi@zu.
Abstract The most important thing for the success of a language learning program, including English as a general course, is making sure that the right tools are used.
Before the materials are made, the needs of the students should be figured out so that the person making the materials has a full picture of what the students need.
The study's goal is to find out what the students want to create tools for English as a general course for students who are not in the English Department.
Twenty-four students from various areas at Universitas Tidar took part in the study.
The study used a method called quantitative research, and a questionnaire was used to collect the data.
The results show that the students want to learn English for their future jobs and to communicate with people around the world.
The kids also say they need to improve their grammar and pronunciation, as well as their speaking, reading, and writing skills.
The students also say that grammar is the hardest part of language to learn and that listening is the hardest macro skill to master.
In terms of the issues, the students say that the materials should cover English for everyday, professional, and academic purposes.
Concerning the creation of in-class activities, the things that students are most excited about are practicing pronunciation, learning new words, and watching English-language videos.
On the other hand, they would rather make videos and work on a project as homework.
They also get more excited when working in groups than when working alone or in pairs.
Page 19 Keywords: Needs Analysis.
Materials Development.
English as a General Course.
General English Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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INTRODUCTION
English skills are becoming more and more important because most information and knowledge is shared in English these days.
People who speak English well should be able to keep up with the latest developments in technology and science.
Also, because English is used to communicate around the world, most people think that people who know it have a better chance of surviving and competing in the global community.
British English is taught in some schools and universities in Indonesia because of this.
Indonesian kids have learned English since they were in middle school.
Because of this, students are thought to already know how to talk to others in English by the time they finish senior high school.
They are also taught English in a structured way when they go to college.
Students need to take English classes to learn how to communicate well and stay alive in a globalized world.
When it comes to college classes, there are two main types: General English and English for Specific Purposes.
The materials in General English class are meant to help students understand English in a broad sense.
On the other hand, the materials in English for Specific Purposes class are more focused on a single science field.
Even though General English is an important foundation for English for Special Purposes (ESP), most studies have been focused on ESP.
So, it seems like the General English study needs to be looked into in terms of how it is taught and learned at the university level.
The way English is taught has changed from focusing on the teacher to focusing on the students.
A learner-centered method of teaching English as a them to be involved in their education (Darsih, 2.
This method focuses on the needs, styles, and goals of each learner.
The curriculum used, along with the Page foreign language (EFL) is thought to help students learn better because it requires Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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Therefore, we can say that in a learner-centered classroom, each student can learn in a way that fits their needs, goals, skills, and personal learning style.
make EFL learning work, it is important to find out what the students need.
Needs evaluation, which is also called needs analysis, involves gathering data that can be used to create a lesson plan that fits the needs of a certain group of students (Brown, 2.
In addition, a need analysis must be done before a syllabus can be made so that goals and targets can be set (Nunan & Lamb, 1.
A need analysis can give you knowledge that you can then use to set goals for the program or, in some cases, choose the best material for the language curriculum.
When students think that the information they are given is important, they will be more motivated to learn and be more involved in the process.
Kids have two kinds of needs: learning needs and goal needs (Hutchinson & Waters, 1.
Goal needs are based on what the student needs to be able to do with the language once the program is over.
Target needs include things that you need, don't have, or want.
Needs describe what the learner needs to learn to communicate successfully in a certain situation, as aimed by the course.
Lacks describe the skills the learner already has in comparison to the desired skills.
Wants describe how the learner feels about what they need to learn.
On the other hand, learning needs are the things that the learner needs to do to master the Based on the different types and parts of needs analysis, it is clear that learners' needs need to be carefully researched.
It can be hard to do, but once the needs are identified through a need analysis, the teacher can write down the expectations, and the activities that should be provided during the learning So, things that are needed for learning, like learning tools, will be made Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Page 21 course's goal, the skills that need to be improved, the student's learning Vol.
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Needs analysis is an important part of making a language program's curriculum, even for the General English school.
General English (GE) is not focused on a single field.
instead, it aims to improve how we talk to each other.
To sum up.
General English tries to improve students' basic skills, such as their ability to read, write, speak, and listen, as well as their grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, so that they can communicate better.
For GE learning to make sense, it needs to focus on what is most important and necessary for the student, which requires a thorough investigation.
Most of the study on EFL students, though, has been on English for Special Purposes and English for Academic Purposes.
Pourshahian et al.
looked at the needs of Iranian students who were learning English as a second language and found that they had trouble with spelling and writing.
Other researchers, including Saleh, also did a needs analysis.
Saleh did a study in 2018 at Tarbiyah and the IAIN Sultan Amai Gorontalo teacher training faculty.
He talked about how different ways of teaching English should be used.
Also, students should put a high priority on learning new words because that will help them understand what they are reading about other subjects.
However, the most recent study should be done to find out more about what kids today need.
This is why the study looks into more than just the skills students need and the ways English is taught.
It also looks into why students want to learn English, what they need to survive in the global era, what they think should be taught, and how they like to learn.
One of the universities in Indonesia.
Universitas Tidar, requires its students to take English as a general study.
The course is for university students who aren't in communication skills, no matter what area they are in.
As was already said.
English is taught in college to get students ready for battle around the world.
This means Page the English Department and was made to help them improve their basic English Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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To reach this goal, a schedule that meets the needs of the students must be created.
Needs analysis can help with this.
Learners are put first in needs analysis, which makes learnercentered learning possible (Belcher & Lukkarila, 2.
So, it is very important to have a professional look into a program before setting learning goals.
By thinking about what students need, we can fully understand how to build a curriculum.
These words agree with what Nunan said.
He says, "No curriculum can claim to be truly learner-centered unless the learner's subjective needs and perceptions about how learning works are taken into account" (Nunan, 1.
The goal of this study is to find out what problems students have learning English, what they need to learn, what skills and material they should be taught, and what kinds of things they like to do while they are being taught and learning.
The goal of this study is to help improve the level of English language teaching at Universitas Tidar by adding to the course outline and course materials for English as a general course.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Theories ESL Conversation-Based Teaching (CLT), which focuses on interaction, real-life conversation, and student-centered learning, is one of the main ideas behind developing ESL materials.
CLT says that materials should focus on teaching students how to use language in meaningful ways, not just how to make the right sentences (Richards, 2.
People who don't major in English should use this related to their field of study than in casual conversations.
Littlewood .
says that ESL materials should be made to fit the needs and goals of each student.
This Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Page 23 method because they need to use English more in business or academic settings Vol.
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Another important framework in ESL education is task-based language teaching (TBLT), which focuses on using projects or real-life problems that require language use (Nunan, 2.
For students who aren't majoring in English.
TBLT encourages adding material related to their field to the language curriculum.
This way, students can improve their English while also learning things that are related to their field, like business, engineering, or the social sciences (Ellis, 2.
Needs as a Non-English Major Students who are not majoring in English usually have different reasons for wanting to learn English than students who are majoring in English.
The English skills they focus on are usually ones that can be used right away in their studies or future jobs.
Because of this, the people who make ESL materials have to think about both how to help students learn the language and how to meet the academic goals of their fields.
"Needs analysis" is an important part of making ESL programs for students in specific areas, as shown by studies by Dudley-Evans and St.
John .
and Hutchinson and Waters .
A needs analysis helps figure out what language skills kids need to do well in school, like being able to read scientific texts, write research papers, and give presentations in their field.
Strevens .
, for example, looked at ESP (English for Specific Purpose.
materials and said that materials made for people who aren't majoring in English need to mix language skills with the target field's terms and ways of talking.
This means that teaching English to people who aren't majoring in English shouldn't just be about language and vocabulary, but also about how to talk about things in descriptions (Hyland, 2.
Also, students studying technical subjects like medicine or engineering might need materials with specific words, case studies, or Page specific ways, like in formal presentations, academic writing, and technical Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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The Importance of Real Sources It has been shown that authentic materialsAitexts and tools that were not made just for language learning but are used by native speakers in real lifeAiare very helpful for English as a second language (ESL) students.
Using real materials like academic journal articles, business reports, or technical manuals makes ESL lessons more useful for people who aren't majoring in English (Guariento & Morley.
Authentic tools help students bridge the gap between what they learn in school and how they use language in real life.
They let them interact directly with the kind of English they will hear at school or work.
Studies on non-English majors have shown that using real things in classes can make students more motivated and give them a more realistic learning experience (Tomlinson, 2.
Emails, presentations, and business reports are good resources for business students.
Research papers and patient care guides are good resources for medical students.
The hard part for teachers is making sure that real materials can be used by ESL students, especially those who are still learning the basics of the language.
Problems with Making ESL Materials for People Who Don't.
Major in English Even though it's clear that non-English majors need specialized materials, it's not easy to make good ESL tools for them.
Making sure that the material is both linguistically and academically correct can be hard.
Majors who aren't English often have trouble learning academic vocabulary, complicated sentence structures, and studies say that ESL materials should include a lot of practice in reading comprehension and writing skills that are based on what students need to learn for Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Page 25 the rules of proper English academic speech (Swales, 1.
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Flowerdew & Peacock, 2.
Using technology in ESL classes is another problem that needs to be solved.
As more people use digital learning platforms, more online resources need to be made to meet the needs of all kinds of ESL students, especially those who are studying areas with a lot of information.
Materials like academic podcasts, interactive games, and web-based writing tools can be used along with traditional teaching methods to make them more interesting and easier for students who aren't majoring in English to access (Godwin-Jones, 2.
But this kind of technology needs to be used in a way that takes into account both the student's language skills and their education needs.
Why cultural relevance is important when making ESL tools for people who don't major in English, cultural factors are also very important.
Materials that are culturally important to students' backgrounds can make learning more interesting and meaningful, which can boost motivation and help them learn a language (Liu.
For example, students from different cultures may have different ideas about how the classroom should work, how people should talk to each other, and even how academic books should be put together.
Teachers and people who make the curriculum need to make sure that these differences are reflected in the course materials and that any changes that are needed are made to fit a broad group of Materials that are sensitive to different cultures can also help students feel more linked to their learning, which can lead to better results.
RESEARCH METHOD
English course at Universitas Tidar were looked into using a quantitative method of descriptive poll research.
This kind of survey study shows how things are talked Page The needs of English as a foreign language (EFL) students in the General Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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A questionnaire, which seemed to be the best way to find out what the students thought and what they needed, was used to get information about their To make sure the questions were true and accurate, the questionnaire was based on versions from Seedhouse .
and Aliki et al.
, with some changes made to fit the student's learning environment.
The questionnaire had open-ended questions so that people could write down any information that wasn't covered by the questions.
This was done so that the researchers could get a wider range of answers.
There were five parts to the form.
The first part was meant to find out how the volunteers learned English.
In the second through fifth sections, participants were asked about their reasons for wanting to learn English, the problems they are having, the tasks they use to learn, and the skills and topics they There were 240 students from Universitas Tidar's Biology Education Department.
Science Education Department.
Indonesian Language and Literature Department, and Management Department who took part in this study.
They are between the ages of 18 and 22.
Each one of them was from Indonesia.
Most of these students didn't use English in everyday life, even though they had studied it for 12 to 14 years.
These 240 kids were given the questionnaire.
The number of times the students gave their ideas and thoughts on their needs and wants in terms of learning English was used as data.
We used the percentage and frequency distribution mathematical tools to look at the data.
StudentsAo Motivation The goal of this first part was to find out why the volunteers wanted to learn
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
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The people who took part were given fifteen words, and they could pick more than one that fit their needs.
In two of the fifteen claims, the participants were told they had to learn English and didn't have the choice.
Only 19.
5% and 8% of the people who took the survey chose these two answers.
Also, most of the people who answered chose five of the other thirteen lines as the main reason they wanted to learn English.
The first one was about people's plans for their future They wanted to learn English so that they could get a good job in the future .
2%).
The second and third reasons had to do with their desire to be a part of the world community.
2% of the people who took the survey knew they needed to learn English because it is an international language and 64.
7% knew they needed to learn English so they could talk to people from other countries.
The last two reasons had to do with what they needed right now as college students.
That's 1% of them thought that learning English would help them with their homework and 61.
9% wanted to be able to pass English tests like the TOEFL or IELTS.
Higher education schools in Indonesia often use tests similar to the TOEFL as a requirement for students to graduate.
The results showed that the people who took part did not feel forced to learn English.
They also back up what Seedhouse .
found, which was that the students knew they needed to learn.
This result didn't change the fact that English is a required course at this university.
Moiinvaziri .
, on the other hand, said that the results showed that even though English is a necessary subject at this university, the students were still excited and positive about learning it in the study In the second part, the goal was to find out which skills and language parts the participants had the most trouble with.
The people who took part were asked to Page Learning Difficulties Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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and two language aspects: vocabulary and grammar.
The results showed that listening was the hardest skill for 59.
4% of the people who took the test.
Speaking and writing, on the other hand, were not too hard for 52.
7% of the people who took the test, respectively.
1% of the people who took the survey thought that reading was the easiest skill to learn.
In terms of language, this study found that the people who took part found both grammar and words hard.
For example, 68.
4% of the people who participated agreed that grammar was the part of the language they were having the most trouble with, while only 53.
6% agreed that words were the part of the language, they were having the most trouble with.
Based on language skills, these results are different from those of Wulanjani .
, who found that speaking was the hardest skill and listening was the easiest.
However.
Moiinvaziri .
found a similar result: listening was the hardest thing for the volunteers while reading and writing were the easiest things for them.
The main difference between this study and Moiinvaziri's was that the people in Moiinvaziri's study thought speaking was hard, but the people in this study did not.
While this is true, it is normal for need analyses in general English to be This is because, as Liu et al.
say, students in general English courses tend to have different needs, motivations, and lacks because the course itself is not usually designed to meet field-specific goals.
Learning Activities People who took the third part were asked to pick the things they liked best in homework, and how to work.
With more than 70% of the votes going to the first group, the players were generally positive about all of the activities that were done Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Page 29 their general English class.
This part was split into three parts: tasks done in class.
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Most of the people who took part were excited about improving their pronunciation .
8%), learning new words .
5%), and watching Englishlanguage videos .
While doing role plays, practicing grammar rules, and doing grammar tasks were seen as the least desirable, they were all chosen by more than 70% of the participants .
5%, 75.
8%, and 77.
6%, respectivel.
This part's results also showed that participants weren't as excited about their homework as they were about doing tasks in class.
English problem-solving .
1%) and making videos on their own .
9% of the.
were the tasks they liked the least.
While making group videos .
9%) and working on an English project .
3% of those surveye.
were the things that people most wanted to do.
The working style was the last group in this part.
Participants were asked to choose between working alone, in pairs, or groups.
Of those who could, 88.
3% chose to work in groups, while 9% chose to work alone.
The study found that the students liked learning when they were with other Students are more interested in and do better in group work in the language classroom when they work with others.
This discovery would be used to plan events for the classroom.
Different jobs should be part of the learning process, though, because each student learns in their way.
Oflaz and Turunc .
say that using different types of learning in tasks helps students stay focused, stay motivated, and do well.
He did more study and found that groups made by considering the students' preferred ways of learning show how preferred ways of learning affect how well groups do in language learning activities where they work In this last part, the focus was on seeing what skills and tools the participants needed to learn.
There were four main types of questions in this part: reading.
Page Skills and Materials Preferences Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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The results showed that all participants liked all the materials given for all four skills, which meant that all four skills needed to be covered in the general English course.
7% of the people who took the survey said they needed to learn how to listen better, and 81.
6% said they would rather practice listening to everyday English talk.
72% to 79% of them only wanted to have a listening activity with school-related material.
Most of the people who participated .
3%) said they needed to learn more about reading strategies for both general and academic books .
2%).
75% of the people who took part wanted to get better at reading everyday things, and 15% wanted to get better at reading academic books.
The results were very different when it came to speaking.
For example, 83.
65% of those who answered wanted to practice job interviews.
Besides the interview, 77.
8% of the people who took part decided to work on their speaking skills by acting out everyday The speaking practice that students didn't want to do in class the least was practicing English presentations .
05%), followed by practicing making business calls .
75%).
When it came to writing skills, the people who took part wanted to practice writing in a professional setting, like when they were applying for a job and writing a CV and cover letter .
9%) and when they were writing business emails and letters .
6%).
They also wanted more practice with different types of writing .
Writing different kinds of paragraphs .
75%) and academic papers .
8% of the tim.
were the things they liked the least.
The results show that the kids know what they need to know to meet the challenges of today.
The skills they need to improve their communication are to the pupils.
In line with the study by Putra et al.
, they believe that knowing English is necessary because of how important it is in everyday life, ranging from Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Page 31 picked to be reading and listening strategies.
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Also, the students know how important English is in the workplace because being able to speak and write English well is a big plus these days.
This knowledge fits with what Pandey .
said about how better English-speaking skills can lead to both a better social life and better job opportunities in the future.
In the business world, communication skills are very important in all situations, from job interviews to the actual workplace.
Being proficient in English means being able to speak clearly.
CONCLUSION
Needs analysis is an important part of making course materials and lesson plans for all kinds of classes, including English as a general course at Universitas Tidar.
The knowledge the university gets from looking into what the students need will help them decide what courses to offer and what materials to use for teaching and learning.
The students in this study are very motivated to learn English because they want to use it in their future careers and to communicate with people around the world.
The study also takes into account the pupils' learning problems.
When it comes to difficulty, students rank listening as the easiest to master, then speaking, writing, and reading.
Grammar, on the other hand, is the hardest skill to To keep students interested in learning English as a foreign language (EFL), the tasks should be planned around what they like.
According to the study, the students are most excited to watch English-language videos, work on their pronunciation, and expand their knowledge in the classroom.
Meanwhile, students also prefer to work in groups instead of doing pairs or individual work.
The kids also say that the English class should cover all four language skills: speaking.
Page would rather work on an English project or make a group film for their task.
They Assessment of Requirements for the CreationA Vol.
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For the kids to master the skills, they need to learn how to do it.
Also.
English for everyday, school, and work use are some of the themes that people want to see in the materials.
The data show that EFL students believe it is very important to master all parts and skills of the English language.
So, when course makers make English lessons, they need to pay close attention to what the students want and how the students think they want it.
These requests should be taken into account by the teachers and people who make the courses.
The current curriculum should be changed to include some things that aren't there or things that are added that meet the needs of the students.
Also, it is recommended that more research use interviews to get a fuller picture of what EFL students need to create materials for English as a general course.
REFERENCES