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A Needs Analysis for Psychology Students of

La Salle College Antipolo

Submitted By:
Frijas, Jan Lucky Ruzzel B.

Submitted To:
Miss. Josephine Cruz

English For Specific Purpose

September 26, 2017

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ABSTRACT
The study explored needs for language skills among undergraduate students in the field

of psychology at La Salle College of Antipolo, Philippines. It explored the difficulties

encountered by the students in reading texts for the psychology course. The subjects of

the study were 10 undergraduate students of Bachelor of Science in Psychology

discipline in the first semester of the said school. The instrument used for data collection

was a survey questionnaire. The study revealed the reading skills needed by the

undergraduates of psychology for academic purposes. The study also revealed that

majority of the students of this specialized discipline does not faced any difficulties and

problems in writing and reading in English for academic purposes. It is suggested that

the findings of the study may be utilized for designing an English language course,

namely “English for Psychology Majors” that suits the target needs of undergraduate

students to develop their reading and writing skills in English language for this

specialized discipline at LSCA.

INTRODUCTION
The teaching of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) was flourished in the 1950s and

1960s. However, ESP gained popularity and became a vital and innovative activity for the

teaching of English in the 1970s. This is because much of its infancy, ESP was dominated

by the teaching of English for Academic Purposes (EAP); most of the materials produced,

the course descriptions written and the research carried out were in English for Academic

Purposes (Dudley-Evans and St. John, 1998). As the main branch, English for Academic

Purposes (EAP) was developed and offered for many reasons: to help international

students reach their full academic potential (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998), to expose
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these students to the expectations and requirements of the faculties in terms of target

situation needs and academic culture (Jordan, 1997). EAP program are offered in academic

institutions of English-speaking countries such as USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New

Zealand (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998). In addition, EAP program are also offered in

academic institutions of many developing countries.

In the context of The Philippines, the colleges and universities in The Philippines

offer EAP programs to the students. According to Abdullah et al. (1993), the progress of

ESP/EAP courses in higher learning institutions follows a pattern which starts from

‘Common-Core’ ESP courses and moves towards greater specificity. One example is the

University of The Philippines, a university in The Philippines, which began with Reading

for Academic Study series to subject-area specification. Another higher learning institution

such Polytechnic University of the Philippines a State University in Metro Manila,

Philippines offers ESP/EAP courses (Abdullah et al., 1993). There is a question of

suitability and relevance of the courses for the students of these two universities in The

Philippines, when students of different faculties take the same ESP/EAP courses. There is

another question whether these EAP courses of these two universities adequately prepare

the students to function in accordance with their specializations. It is also obvious that

there are EAP courses, which are relevant to all students of different faculties. However,

different faculties have their own specific English language requirements thus the English

4 language needs of students vary. The need for developing specific EAP syllabuses and

courses, therefore, cannot be overstressed.

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Philippines’ universities should furnish to the English language needs of the

different faculties in relation to country’s progress and development in the fields of science

and technology. Professionals of Psychology department specialists should be competent

in English. The process of producing competent professionals in the field of psychology

specialists, academe workers and other related medical jobs begin at the college and

university levels. The students should be equipped with subject-specialist knowledge and

specific English language of their chosen fields during their study periods at higher

learning institutions.

English language needs analysis can determine the language needs of students in a

specific field. According to many writers in the ESP context, needs analysis is prerequisite

for designing and developing a course, and the development of syllabuses and materials

(Brown, 1995, Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, Munby, 1978;

Robinson, 1991; West, 1994). This study attempts to examine the English language needs

of the undergraduate students in writing and reading skills in the field of psychology at La

Salle College Antipolo, a private catholic school in The Philippines. The study specifically

considers the difficulties encountered by the students in reading in English language for

academic purposes.
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LANGUAGE NEEDS ANALYSIS

The term, “analysis of needs” first appeared in the 1920’s in West Bengal, a province of

India when Michael West introduced the concept of “needs” to cover what learners will

be required to do with the foreign language in the target situation and how learners might

best master the language during the period learning (West, 1994). In 1960 the term,

‘English for Specific Purposes’ appeared at the Makerere Conference in 1961 (West,

1994).

The key stage in ESP is needs analysis. Needs analysis is the corner stone of ESP and

leads to a focused course (Brown, 1995; Chambers, 1980; Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998;

Ellis & Johnson, 1994; Jordan, 1997). According to Robinson (1991, p.7), “needs analysis

is generally regarded as critical to ESP, although ESP is by no means the only educational

enterprise which makes use of it”. Hutchinson and Waters (1997, p.53) argue that “any

language course should be based on needs analysis”. Dudley-Evans & St John (1998,

p.121) state that “needs analysis is the process of establishing the what and how of a

course”.

Needs analysis should be undertaken by ESP practitioners. The main sources for needs

analysis are the learners, people working or studying in the field, ex-students and

documents relevant to the field, clients, employers, colleagues and ESP research in the field

(Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998). The main instruments for executing needs analysis

study are questionnaire, analysis of authentic spoken and written texts, discussions,

structured interviews, observations and assessments (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998;

Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Robinson, 1991).

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BACKGROUND STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and

unconscious experience as well as thought. It is an academic discipline and a social science

which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and

researching specific cases.

Psychology students of La Salle College Antipolo

Also known as “Psychology Society” comprised of four level and section with an

outstanding bright student managed by an independent organization, these students are

known for their self-discipline, grade conscious and self-studying habit, they may be the

most bookworm students inside the premises, but there still lacking in their course and

necessities for their program, English is the key language of their academe comprising all

the technical vocabularies, and psychological terms this means that they are perfect

candidate for ESP/EAP courses helping them to achieved their full extent as full

professional practitioners in the near future, this will now all lead to the question of whether

they need to undergo ESP classes to improve their English capacity since they will soon

deal with diverse kind of people.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design 10

The study, a descriptive study, was a small-scale research. The study was based on

convenient sampling under the non-probability sampling strategy. The study used a

questionnaire, which was designed by the researcher as a needs assessment instrument.

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Subjects

The subjects, chosen for conducting needs analysis study, were 10 students, studying at an

undergraduate level in the Psychology department of La Salle College Antipolo,

Philippines in the year of 2017 (semester-1 in 2017-2018 academic session). The N (total)

population was 133 final semester students in the specialized discipline. 10 students of this

semester were chosen for this research. The rationale was that these chosen students of

psychology had been exposed to the academic program for almost two years of their

academic program while the duration of their programs was four years and they might

identify the English language needs of their psychology course discipline for academic

purposes. Therefore, they could provide feedback on which aspects of language they

needed for their academic purposes.

Data Collection Method: Questionnaire

The method, which was employed in the research to collect data, was a survey questionnaire. The

questionnaire was designed to reveal the target information based on 1the objectives of the study.

The questionnaire consisted of three sections, each designed for a specific purpose. In section

one, it’s an open-ended question sought to elicit information on respondents’ idea of studying

English language. In section two, is in the form of checklist, the questions sought to investigate

learners perceived academic reading needs, learners’ present level of reading skills and the

necessity of English language reading and writing skill for the field of psychology. In section

three, it’s an interview questions sought information concerning learners’ difficulties in reading

skills in English language and how will they improve their present weaknesses for the field of

psychology.
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Data Collection Procedures

The data of the study were collected through the distribution of questionnaires. The students’

questionnaires were administered to the undergraduate students in the field of psychology. The

questionnaires were distributed to the undergraduate students wherever they were found in school

premise of the college during the 1st semester (2017/2018 academic session). It took almost one

week to carry out data collection.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This section reports the findings and discussions of the study in these following aspects:

1. the importance of English language for Academic Purposes for accomplishing

reading and writing tasks of psychology course, 2. the importance of learning

‘specific technical vocabulary’ or the psychological terms and 3. the difficulties

encountered by the students in writing and reading skills in English for academic

purposes while taking that program.

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Figure 1.
The bar graph shows the total number of respondents who rated the 3 questions according

to the degree of how difficult and good are they when it comes to English language or the

ESP.

5 5 5

2 2 2

1 1
0 0 0 0 0

QUESTION NO. 1 QUESTION NO. 2 QUESTION NO. 3

Very Good Good Slightly Good Slightly Difficult Difficult

I. The bar graph of question no. 1 encompassed how eloquent a specific student on

using the English language while reporting or presenting a topic related to

psychology course and shows that among the 10 students who answer the given

questionnaires, 5 of them labelled their fluency as slightly good and the other

remaining level which is good has 3 students while the level of very good has only

2 respectively.
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II. The bar graph of question no. 2 contains the question of time management

regarding the task of finishing an essay using the English language, revealed that

5 out the 10 students who participated in this study rated their proficiency good

while 2 of them rated their capacity to maintain the time pressure as very good and

the other 2 students are in the position of slightly good while the remaining single

student indicate that he has difficulties on it.

III. The bar graph of question no. 3 stating the capacity of each students to construct

their grammar properly when addressing or presenting a topic in the class using the

English language shows that only 1 of the respondents rated slightly good at

articulation while 4 of them has slightly difficulties using the proper grammar of

the English language and the rest of the students has the mastery of it. Figure 2.

Figure 2.
The bar graph shows the total number of respondents who rated the usefulness of English

language according to its usage on different question and situation faced by a typical

psychology student in school.

Very Useful Useful Not Useful

7 7 7
6
5 5 5 5
4
3 3 3

0 0 0 0 0 0

Learning in Making Reading Jotting down Addressing Talking to

class research lessons notes your foreigners
professor
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I. 6 out of 10 respondents who participated in this study indicate that English

language is very useful when learning new information regarding their psych

subjects while the remaining students suggest that it’s useful.

II. When making research or report, majority of students affirm its usefulness while

only 3 of them say’s it is useful.

III. Both reading the lesson and jotting down notes share the same statistic when it

comes to the usefulness of English language.

IV. When the students address their respective professors few or only 3 of them find

it very useful while the rest of the students find it useful too.

V. Most of the respondents or 7 out 10 students, states that it is suitable to use the

English language when talking to a foreigner while the 3 remaining students

find it useful.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY

It is evident that the goal of ESP classes is to provide targeted language instruction that will

address the students’ real communicative needs in various professional situations. It is the

teacher’s task to help students to become functional members of their professional

communities by attending to their linguistic needs. However, the designing of ESP courses

is marked with many difficulties, as illustrated above.

The needs analysis survey carried out among students of psychology about their,

weaknesses and needs has generally shown that students have a lacking need for English

proficiency. They realize that psychological term in English are important. Only very few

of them say that they do not expect to use English in their future careers, but even those

students still want to learn it. Interestingly, some students admit that they are “lazy”,
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“not equipped” and “do not know the proper usage of grammar” but still interested in

improving their language skills. This is something the teacher must consider for the

students’ internal motivation thus needs to be supplemented with adequate external

motivation that forces students to do work both in the classroom and outside of it. The

teacher must make sure that the tasks are demanding and challenging and must see to it that

everybody is involved. It is certainly an advantage that the students are competent enough

to speak English in class and, in most of cases, bring good study skills with the help of

professors. Designing a learner-centered syllabus that is based on the needs analysis of pre-

service students certainly does not mean compromising on course requirements or looking

for the lowest common denominator. However, course designers need to look beyond the

self-perceived needs of the students by including the valid requirements and observations

of other stakeholders or former graduates, the institution’s requirements, as well as the

instructor’s own previous teaching experience. The aim is to create a learning environment

that is dynamic and stimulating and maximally responsive to the future target situations in

which students will find themselves.

Therefore, the execution of these planned must be guide well by the present teacher for the

learners to grasp the extent of ideas and information bring by the learner-centered teaching

and be able to introduce them to a new era of education system brought by the modern

technology today. English may be difficult for the beginners but you may overcome it

through a series of practice and trial just like one of my respondent’s answer, says that

“Familiarizing oneself with the way natives or those who simply know the language is

useful and efficient wat to improve language skills”.