An English language needs assessment of Management students at the Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the English language needs of Management students at the Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University. Students' perceptions of their own language needs, teachers' perception of their students' needs and administrators' perceptions of students' needs were investigated. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews with three groups of informants consisting of 50 fourth-year Management students, nine teachers and three administrators. Data were initially analyzed by using descriptive statistics like frequencies and percentages. Then chi-square tests were conducted on the students' responses to see whether the differences among their choices was significant or not. Administrators' responses were also included in the discussion of results, indicating points of agreement and disagreement. The main similarities between the perceptions of the groups are on the necessity of English for a mastery of subject matter in Management and the most important reason for learning English, which is to have a future career. The students and the teachers agree on the most important writing skill and areas of difficulty in writing. All the groups of participants agreed on the fact that the English program in the Faculty of Political Sciences does not provide the students with enough speaking practice. Moreover, the students and the teachers agree that the students' lack of specific vocabulary in their fields causes difficulty in reading, writing and listening. There are major differences between the groups when the skill are considered. The students pointed out speaking, the teachers reading and the administrators speaking, reading and listening as the most important skills. Furthermore, the students believe that their ability level has to be higher in order to be successful than the teachers do. Although students stated that the program did not provide them with the necessary terminology and content for their departmental courses, the teachers felt that they provide the students with enough practice on field-specific terminology and content. Like the teachers, the administrators pointed out that English courses provide the students with essential terminology and content, but these areas should be emphasized. In the light of the findings, the researcher presents pedagogical implications such as setting clear cut objectives, planning and organizing the courses based on these objectives and informing the students about what performance level should be expected in all skills in order to address the language of the needs of Management students more effectively. Recommendations on how to improve the English program at the Faculty of Political Sciences include increasing the hours of English language classes and giving more emphasis to the presentation and practice of the terminology and content in business English. In addition to these, specific ideas on how to develop students' language proficiency in all four language skills are presented.