Needs Analysis as a Measure for the Accuracy of ESP Syllabus Courses in Kurdistan Technical Institutes, Department of Administration as a Case Study

Abstract

ESP courses are used in all Higher Education institutions in Kurdistan/Iraq. These courses are supposed to provide students with both awareness and skills to handle communication in English in the target subjects. This paper addresses the effect and shortcomings of “Administrative Reading in English’, an ESP course taught in Kurdistan Technical Institutes.  The paper examines the extent to which these courses fit the needs of Kurdish students; and whether the curricula of the course reflect the characteristics of a systematic standard ESP course. Data was collected through a questionnaire distributed to three different student groups and interviews were conducted with instructors. The data is used to identify the drawbacks of the course material; and investigate the relevance of the teaching methods, assessment and the language used, to the level, motivation and needs of the students. The research concludes that a solid curriculum that takes into consideration students’ motivation for learning as well as their receptive and productive learning skills has not been correctly constructed for the courses in general.