Abstract: Language curriculum development often starts with determining how syllabus design can address the specific needs and wants of learners. The learners are often seen as the best judges of their own needs and want because they know what they can and cannot do with the target language and what language skills are most essential. Some students have difficulties in their studies because they have not had experience of the academic English language skills typically needed to succeed at university level.
Student’s competencies play a vital role in penetrating specific sectors and practice their respective profession especially in an industry where there is stiff competition. That’s why; knowledge in using the said language is considered an advantage. Moreover, someone must also possess the necessary technical expertise to perform required tasks in specific situation. This premise led to some developments in the teaching process of English subjects in the tertiary level. Developments include the integration of the technical knowledge related to the area of specialization of the students in the English subjects that they are taking. This is also known as English for Specific Purposes, but for this study it would be focusing on English for Academic Purposes.
This study focused on the language needs of IT students as the basis of developing a syllabus-design for their English subject, particularly Communication Arts I appropriate for the said course. The said syllabus-design is accompanied by proposed proto-type materials.
The major respondents included sixty-four (64) student-respondents, nineteen (19) worker-respondents from the IT industry, ten (10) faculty members from the IT department and seven (7) from the English Department. The needs analysis was done and the results showed that there were some consistencies of responses among the respondents except the worker-respondents as it gave out a not significant position. All groups except the aforementioned perceived that the performance of all four skills and its importance in the IT field are highly significant. The needs analysis also revealed that among the four skills, the IT students need to focus on the skills of reading and speaking to successfully accomplish the course. And that writing should not be the point of concentration as what the course outline requires, since it does not solely entail the purpose in achieving the objective of the course.
Simple statistical treatments were utilized. These include percentages, weighted mean, t-value and significant- value.
It concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings in the dynamic process of English language curriculum planning, syllabus review, and materials writing.
From the outcome of the needs analysis, the researcher used it as her basis in creating a proposed course outline in English specially- tailored for IT Students. The researcher suggests to modify the course outline for the subject Communication Arts I, the first English subject taken by IT students in their first year of their first semester in the course. This decision was supported by the document analysis done by the researcher on the IT prospectus. Comes with the syllabus-design is proto-type materials for the said English subject.
The researcher also did survey the need for a revision in the IT prospectus by examining the CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) for the IT course. And based on the investigation done, there should be an amendment done in the offered English programs for IT Students to fully accomplish the competency standard necessitated for the course.
Keywords: English language, Students, Communication.
Title: USING THE LANGUAGE NEEDS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS IN DEVELOPING AN ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSE PROTO-TYPE MATERIALS FOR COMMUNICATION ARTS I
Author: ALLEN S. VALERA
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
Research Publish Journals
