A Needs Analysis Approach to the Evaluation of English-for-Shipping-Staff Course book

This study was conducted to evaluate an ESP textbook named Oxford handbook of commercial correspondences to investigate the needs of the participants who were from five different Shipping lines agencies and ESP teachers. The research was carried out by adopting a mixed-methods approach .At the beginning of the study, a needs analysis questionnaire was distributed to 60 shipping line staff who had studied the ESP textbook named Oxford Handbook of Commercial Correspondence to identify their english language needs for their career. To eliminate the random respond in questionnaires by participants, a set of interviews arranged with five Shipping Line staff to investigate their needs and expectations from an ESP course book and their satisfaction on the ESP course book being evaluated. Afterwards, the coursebook evaluation questionnaire was distributed to other 60 Shipping line employees to identify to what extent the course book was successful in fulfilling their needs. Besides, semi-structured interviews were carried out to triangulate the results. The data collected from the questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively by using SPSS program, while those collected from documents and interview transcriptions were analyzed qualitatively. Findings of the language needs analysis confirmed that all four of the language skills were important for the students’ career. In conclusion, the results indicated that the ESP course had some limitations including its curriculum, the teaching-learning materials and tasks used. However, the textbook was to some extent helpful in commercial correspondence field.

Keywords:

English for specific Purposes (ESP) , course book evaluation , ESP course , needs analysis , English for Shipping Staff