The Roles of ESP Learners Need Analysis

21 phrases, suggest that the students say something or suggest what could come next in a paragraph the students is writing. The next is that the teacher has a role as a resource. When the students ask the teacher how to write something or what a word or phrase means, and they want to know information when they are doing an activity, the teacher can be one of the most important resources they have. The next teacher role is as a tutor. When the students are working on longer projects, for example writing or preparing for debate, the teacher works with individual or small group then act as tutor combining the role of a prompter and resourse The last role is the teacher as a observer. Having this role, the teacher can give the students useful group and individual feedback when she or he wants to observe what the students do. In short, an ESP teacher should be able to facilitate students to learn in any kind of role. They can be controller, organizer, prompter, resource, tutor, or observer. The teacher roles in ESP are important aspects to be considered.

c. The Roles of ESP Learners

The roles of learner in ESP teaching are various. Richard and Rodgers 2001: 235 identify some primary roles of learners that are implied by task work. 22 The first role of the learner is as a group participant. Many tasks will be done in pairs or small groups. For learners who are more accustomed to whole-class andor individual work, this may require some adaptation. The second role is learners as a monitor. In task-based language teaching, tasks are not employed for their own sake but as a means of facilitating learning. Class activities have to be designed so that learners have the opportunity to notice how language is used in communication. Learners themselves need to follow not only to the message in task work, but also to the form in which such message typically come packed. The third role of the learner is as a risk-taker and innovator. Many tasks will require learners to create and interpret message for which they lack full linguistic resources and prior experience. Practice in restating, paraphrasing, using paralinguistic signal will often be needed. The skills of guessing from linguistic and contextual clues, asking for clarification, and consulting with other learners may also need to be developed. In short, learners in ESP teaching can have a role as group participant, monitor, ad risk-taker and innovator. Beside the definition and characteristics of ESP, learner roles in ESP are important aspects to be considered. 23

d. Need Analysis

An important principle of ESP approach is the purposes of the learners in learning the language. An ESP approach starts with an analysis of the learner’s needs. Needs analysis is a systematic way of gathering information a out learner’s needs, interpreting the information and then making course decision based on the interpretation in order to meet the needs. As Richards and Schmidt 2002: 352 state, a needs analysis is the process of determining the needs for which learners require a language and make priority scale of need. The process is normally required before a syllabus can be developed for language teaching. The needs analysis is defined as the analysis of students’ needs of English in order to designed effective learning materials which are suitable for them. The effective learning materials, then, help the students to use the language in the vocational workplace. Basturkmen 2010:19 says that needs analysis in ESP refers to a course process in which the language and skill that the learners will use in the vocational workplace are identified by considering the existing knowledge of the learners, their perception of their needs and the teaching context. The information gathered from the needs analysis is used in determining and refining the content and method of the ESP course. In ESP, learner’s needs are described in terms of what the learner will be able to do with the language at the end of the study Richards, 2001:33. 24 Long 2005 mentions four reasons for performing needs analysis. Those are to determine the relevance of the material to the learners’ situation, to justify the materials in terms of relevance for all parties concerned learner, teacher, administration, parents, to account for differences in learner needs and styles, and to create a syllabus which will meet the needs of the learners as fully as possible within the context of the situation. Hutchinson and Waters 1987: 55-63 classify the needs into the target needs and the learning needs. They are explored below. 1 Target needs The target needs refer to what the learners need to do in the target situation. The target needs include necessities, lacks and wants. a Necessities Necessities refer to what the learners have to know in order to function effectively in the target situation Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 55. b Lacks According to Hutchinson and Waters 1987: 55-56, the learners’ lack is the gap between the target proficiency and the existing proficiency of the learners. It means that, what the learners know already should be recognized to decide which of the necessities the learners’ lack. 25 c Wants The learners need to have a view of what they want or they need. The learners’ motivation is important in the learning process, so learners’ perceived wants cannot be ignored Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 57. Wants r elated to learners’ desires. 2 Learning needs Learning needs refer to what the learners need to do in order to learn. According to Hutchinson and Waters 1987: 60-62, learning needs indicates the route: how the learners are going to get from their starting point lacks to the destination necessities. To have useful analysis of learners needs, the needs, potential and constraints of the route must be considered. In addition, the learners must choose their route according to the conditions of the learning situations, their knowledge, skills and strategies, and their motivation. It can be concluded that the needs analysis plays an important role in refining the ESP course. The needs analysis is an important pre- course design process in which information is gathered to help the teacher or course developer decide what the course should focus on, what content in terms of language or skills to include and what teachinglearning methods to employ. 26

4. Materials Development