A needs analysis study on academic english needs of maritime faculty students in english medium programs

This study aims to investigate if students' academic needs are met by the exit level objectives of the English preparatory program so that a more effective program, which better addresses students' academic needs, can be designed. Based on a review of literature on ESP, needs analysis and previously conducted studies, and then a questionnaire was prepared and administered to 100 students (sophomore, junior and senior) and 5 lecturers who teach main stream classes. Semi- structured interviews were also conducted with 5 students and 5 lecturers. The study was carried out at the Maritime Faculty of a foundation university in Istanbul, in the spring semester of 2015- 2016 academic year. The data was analysed through descriptive statistics. The results were interpreted by mean values to answer the research questions. Analysis of the responses demonstrated that the students and the lecturers considered most of the outcome objectives of the language preparatory school important, and most of the objectives met students' academic needs. The data was further analysed by Independent Sample t- Tests in order to see if there was a significant difference between the students' and the lecturers' ideas. The results indicated that there was no significant difference. Additional data was collected from the students and the lecturers through semi-structured interviews to better understand students' academic needs. Both the students and the lecturers made comments on the language skills, and if there should be more sub-skills included in the objectives. On this basis, some suggestions were made for preparatory program designers.