Determining The English Language Needs of Surveying Technology Students: Tegbareed Technical and Vocational Education Training College In Focus
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2009-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The main objective of this study was to determine the English language
needs of Surveying Technology students' academic and occupational
setting.
So as to effectuate this, five groups of respondents were identified.
Surveying Technology students, surveying technology instructors,
English language instructors taken from the teaching staff and on-thejob
surveying graduates and their employers were taken from other nonteaching
staff. From each group, respondents were selected using
purposive, available and random sampling techniques. As a result, 80
students, 9 surveying instructors, 8 English language instructors, 12 onthe-
job surveying graduates and 2 employers were taken as a source of
information.
Qualitative and quantitative data were obtained from these subjects
mainly through questionnaire, interview and focus-group discussion.
Questionnaires were distributed to the 4 groups of subjects. Interview
and focus- group discussion were conducted with the English language
instructors and survey students. The questionnaires were designed for
surveying students, surveying instructors and English language
instructors to elicit information about the academic situation. The
interview for English language instructors and focus-group discussion
were designed to get more information about the academic situation
which couldn't be obtained through the questionnaires. The
questionnaire for the On-Job and surveying graduates and interview for
the employers were to obtain information about the language needs of
the learners in the occupational setting.
English language macro skills and a number of activities which were
thought to be widely used in the academic and occupational situations
were selected and presented to the respondents to rate their frequency,
and importance level as well as students' respective abilities in
performing them. The findings indicated the existence of a considerable
gap between the type and the extent of English language students are
expected to use in both academic and occupational careers and the
English language course being offered. Therefore, taking this gap into
consideration recommendations have been made.