Hacettepe Üniversitesi, İngilizce hazırlık birimi öğrencilerinin akademik sözel becerilere olan gereksinimlerinin belirlenmesi

ABSTRACT Title: Needs Assessment of Oral Skills for Students of the Department of Basic English at Hacettepe University Author: Zeynep Avci Thesis Chairperson: Dr. Bena Gül Peker Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program Committee Members: Dr. Theodore S. Rodgers Dr. Tej Shresta Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program A major issue in designing a syllabus in any educational setting is the determination of learner needs. A needs analysis survey can describe the needs of the learners precisely. Such an analysis can be done through a comparison of the tasks and activities learners will perform in the future with the activities in their current program, in other words the identification of the gaps between established goals and the students' actual performance. Also Berwick (1989) identifies Discrepancy needs analysis, Democratic needs analysis, Expert needs analysis, and Diagnostic needs analysis. This study follows Discrepancy needs analysis model. The present study investigated the perceived oral language needs of students at Hacettepe University, which is a typical English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context. To this end, this study compared the results of a present situation analysis at the Department of Basic English (DBE), Hacettepe University and a target situation analysis at freshman departments of Chemistry and Economics. A further aim was to describe the goals of the English medium departments in terms of academic oral skills.There has been little emphasis on the description of academic oral skills / speaking skills in higher education. There are two important studies on this topic. The first one was done by Ostler (1980). Although the main focus was not on academic oral skills, Ostler surveyed the relative importance of various academic tasks across all skill areas. Ferris and Tagg (1996) also conducted research on the expectations of university instructors and the needs of university students in terms of oral skills. Both studies emphasize that university students need help in developing their academic and listening skills. The present study is originated from this claim. Ninety eight students, seven instructors and three administrators participated in this descriptive study. The main research question was: "How do the students and instructors of DBE and other faculties at Hacettepe University perceive oral skill needs for the students' academic success?". Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations and questionnaires and analyzed using frequencies, percentages and means. The results were displayed in tables. Also, for the analysis of interviews coding technique was used and class observation results were analyzed through FLint chart. The results of this study showed that the requirements of DBE and Freshman departments are different in terms of academic speaking skills / oral skills. Students at DBE do not need academic speaking tasks as much as freshman students; therefore, the academic speaking skills are not emphasized in DBE. The findings reveals that both freshman and DBE students feel themselves incompetent in academic speaking tasks such as giving oral presentations or taking part in discussions. They need extra assistance to develop these tasks. Moreover, it can besaid that students at DBE are not aware of the fact that they are going to need academic speaking tasks for their departmental studies. It can thus be concluded that the Department of Basic English may need to redesign its syllabus to address the students' oral language needs for their academic studies in their target departments.