NEEDS ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH ACADEMIC WRITING FOR NON-ENGLISH

LECTURERS LEARNING TO WRITE IN INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC

JOURNALS

Hartono1, Ruseno Arjanggi2, Kurniawan Yudhi Nugroho3, Ira Alia Maerani4

1,3
Department of English Language Education of Sultan Agung Islamic University
2
Department of Psychology of Sultan Agung Islamic University
4
Department of Law of Sultan Agung Islamic University

Abstract: With the increasing demand for producing international scientific publications, many
university lecturers and researchers are trying to improve their English skill especially for
writing papers for international publications. The so-called trainings or courses on journal
writing for international publications have been offered to and conducted for them. This research
was an attempt to identify and analyze the learning needs of them so that appropriate goals and
syllabus for courses can be formulated. The data of the study were collected with a
questionnaire covering the identification of their interest in improving English writing for
academic purpose, writing skills considered important for them and their perceived levels of
difficulties, as well as their preference in its implementation. Forty non-English subject lectures
of a university with different disciplines as medicine, engineering, psychology, laws and
education were randomly selected as respondents of the study. The data were then analyzed
descriptively, and recommendation for syllabus and course implementation was offered.

Keywords: ESP, English writing skill, academic writing, non-English subject lecturers,
international publication

INTRODUCTION
The demand for Indonesian lecturers and researchers to publish scientific papers in international
journals is now increasing. The Regulation of the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher
Education (MRTHE) Number 20 of 2017, for example, explicitly stipulates that to have the
professorship allowance, professors are obliged to publish scientific papers in regular basis
(Menristekdikti, 2017). Some types of research grants provided by government also require the
grant awardees to have international publication as one of the required research outputs
(Dimyati, 2018). In addition, the government also offers an incentive to lecturers who can
publish articles in reputable international journals as Scopus-indexed journals (Kemristekdikti,
2018b). Since the number of international publications becomes a highly-scored item in
institution‟s and department‟s accreditation assessment, many universities also encourage,
facilitate and offer interesting financial incentives for their lecturers who successfully publish
papers internationally.
For that purpose, many lecturers are now trying to improve their English in general and
English writing skill in particular. They attend courses, trainings, or writing clinics. Likewise,
universities through their language centers or research centers regularly offer trainings and many
types of writing assistance in the effort to boost their international publication records. The
government itself, through MRTHE regularly offers training to lecturers and researchers on
technical guidance (Bimbingan Teknis) for publishing papers in reputable international journals
(Kemristekdikti, 2018a).
 However, many writing trainings prepared and offered by universities and training
centers or experienced individuals do not really cater what the lecturers‟ need because the
training syllabus very often are drafted not based on a thorough study of needs analysis. The
writer‟s experience of interviewing participants attending such trainings found that, while the
training was somehow worthwhile and motivating, it couldn‟t go in details in addressing their
writing problems which in many cases are very heterogeneous.
To narrow the gap between what the syllabus drafters or course designers assume to be
the problems of the training participants and the real needs of the training participants, needs
analysis is necessary to be conducted so that the gap between the trainers‟ and learners‟ expected
teaching and learning goals can be identified (Nunan, 1988). English course for journal writing
for international publication can be considered as English for specific purposes (ESP) since it is
designed to serve stakeholders with different learning goals, and aim to train students to use
English in a specific discipline or context (Aliakbari & Boghayeri, 2014); a course which is
intended to prepare students for non-teaching uses of the target language (Sarré & Whyte, 2016)
or for the English used in specific disciplines, vocations, or professions to accomplish specific
purposes” (Orr, 2002).
Serving as an information gathering process (Boroujeni & Fard, 2013), needs analysis is
the cornerstone of an ESP course since it helps curriculum designers identify the demands of the
target and learning situation so that the course prepared can be directed into a “focused course”
(Dudley-Evans, Jo, & John, 1998) as well as a needs-based course (Chostelidou, 2010). With
needs analysis, problem areas and gap between the present proficiency level and the required
proficiency can be identified so that curriculum or syllabus can be made fitted to learners‟ needs.
As Nunan states, courses should be designed to fit students, not fitting students to courses
(Nunan, 1999).
Under the above perspective, this study was aimed at identifying and analyzing non-
English lecturers‟ needs in improving their ability to write English academic writing for
international journals with the following specific research questions:
1. How is the non-English lecturers‟ interest in improving their English writing skill?
2. What English writing skills are considered important for them?
3. How do they like to have the training conducted?

METHOD
This descriptive study was conducted at Sultan Agung Islamic University Semarang involving 40
participants selected conveniently from around 400 lecturers working at the university (10%).
They were from departments other than English Education or English Literature as Engineering,
Medicine, Nursing, Psychology, Management, Accounting, Mathematics and Elementary School
Teacher Educations, Law, and Islamic Studies. Their general English and writing proficiency
were heterogeneous, but when they were requested to self-assess their English competence by
choosing the available responses of 1) Basic, 2) Intermediate, and 3) Advance, 45% of the
respondents responded “Basic”, while the rest chose “Intermediate”. Mostly they hold a master
degree (77.5%), only 9 of them hold a doctoral degree (22.5%). Fifteen respondents were male
(37.5%), while the rest 25 respondents were female. The youngest respondent was 27 years old
while the oldest was 57 years old.
Data for the study were collected by a questionnaire written in Bahasa Indonesia. It
consisted of 4 parts which collect consecutively respondent‟s identity (Part 1), respondent‟s
interest in improving English writing skill (Part 2), needs analysis (Part 3), and training
preference (Part 4). Part 2 and 4 were presented in the forms of questions with 3 prepared options
for answer, while part 3 as the core of the questionnaire was presented in the form Likert-type
model of 5 scales of the usefulness. Respondents were requested to respond to statements by
giving a check (V) in which 1 is “Absolutely Not Useful”, 2 represents “Not Useful”, 3 is
“Undecided”, 4 and 5 consecutively represent “Useful”, and “Very Useful”. The use of
questionnaire in needs analysis is in line with Haque who suggests that collecting information on
writing problems can be obtained among others through students or respondents via interviews
and questionnaire (Haque, 2014). The data collected were then analyzed descriptively.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

1. The Non-English Lecturers’ Interest in English writing skill
Four questions in Part 2 of the questionnaire were meant to collect information on the non-
English lecturers‟ interest in English writing skill. The results are as follows:
a. Responding to the question whether they were interested in improving their English
writing skill, 5% of the respondents chose “not interested”, 32,5% chose “interested”,
and the rest 62.5% chose “very interested”.
b. Responding to the question whether they are interested in joining if a training on English
academic writing is offered to them, the result is similar to the previous question in which
5% of the respondents responded by “Not interested”, 47.5% responded by “Interested”,
and the last 47.5% responded “Very Interested”.
c. For question 3 which inquired whether university lecturers need to have the ability to
write journal articles in English, no one answered “Not necessary”. All respondents were
positive; 32.5% of the respondents answered “Necessary”, and even the rest 67.5%
answered “Absolutely Necessary”.
d. For the last question in Part 2 which inquires what would happen to the lecturers‟
academic performance if the lecturers cannot write academic papers in English, 12.5%
chose “fine”, 22.5% mentioned that nothing would happen to their academic
performance, and the rest 65% stated that their academic performance would be
negatively affected.

2. The Need Analysis

Part 2 as the core of the questionnaire collected information on what respondents needed to
learn in relation to improving their writing skills and abilities. There were 15 statements
which required responses on the basis of the usefulness in which 1 stands for “Absolutely
Not Useful”, 2 is for “Not Useful”, 3 is “Undecided”, 4 and 5 consecutively represent
“Useful”, and “Very Useful”. The results are presented in term of percentage below:

No Statements 1 (%) 2 (%) 3 (%) 4 (%) 5 (%)

1 The ability to write correct English sentences. 0 2.5 0.0 37.5 60
2 The ability to develop main ideas to paragraphs. 5.0 67.5 27.5
3 The ability to write paraphrases. 2.5 5.0 50.0 42.5
4 The ability to write quotations. 2.5 50.0 47.5
5 The ability to write English essays. 60.0 40.0
6 The ability to write reviews. 5.0 47.5 47.5
7 The ability to describe data in the forms of tables 5 5 47.5 42.5
or graphs.
8 The ability to compare and contrast data and 7.5 0.0 65.0 27.5
information.
 9 The ability to write good paragraphs for 5.0 0.0 40.0 55.0
introduction in journal articles.
10 The ability to write conclusion of an article. 5.0 0.0 40.0 55.0
11 The ability to describe method used in the 5.0 7.5 45.0 42.5
research.
12 The ability to write discussion of the research 2.5 57.5 40.0
findings.
13 The ability to write abstracts in English. 0 0 37.5 62.5
14 The ability to write references. 5.0 5.0 60.0 30.0
15 The ability to use punctuations correctly. 7.5 12.5 47.5 32.5

CONCLUSION

Richards (2001), stated that in a language teaching program NA can be used for the following
purposes.
1. To find out the required language skills for a learner to perform a particular role, such as sales
manager, university student.
2. To find out a gap between their present proficiency level and required proficiency.
3. To find out problem areas of the learners (Richards, 2001).

The needs, goals and wishes of the learners have to be taken into account to make the students
reach the intended language level. As is indicated by Nunan, „„rather than fitting students to
courses, courses should be designed to fit students” (Nunan, 1999). In other words, no longer are
the students expected to fit in the curriculum, but the curriculum is prepared according to the
language needs of the learners. Therefore, it is important to accept the fact that learners should be
central to all aspects of language teaching (Gözüyeşil, 2014).

clearly address their problems of language mastery or teaching workloads.

It is also considered as the starting point of adopting a framework for ESP course design with the
aim of highlighting all stakeholders‟ view in the process of curriculum development, course and
syllabus design, and evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of the
needs-based course (Chostelidou, 2010).

In literature, needs analysis is referred to as “the cornerstone of ESP” and its proper application
could result into a “focused course” (Dudley-Evans et al., 1998)
The importance of data collection procedures aiming at the identification of the
demands of the target and learning situation (Dudley-Evans et al., 1998)

(Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; West, 1994, 1997)

NA is considered as a basic principal of ESP NA is considered as a basic principal of ESP

(Robinson 1991) and most of the information on NA initially came from ESP [13]. This is
probably due to the fact that an NA approach is more useful when learners‟ needs are linked to a
„discrete set of communicative situations‟

ESP courses are usually designed to serve stakeholders with different learning goals, and aim to
train students to use English in a specific discipline or context (Aliakbari & Boghayeri, 2014)

Teaching curriculum is usually designed to answer the three basic questions:

What is to be learned? How the learning should be undertaken and achieved? To what
extent is the former appropriate and the latter effective? (Chapter 2)

definisi2 NA ada di chapter 2

Nunan (1988) claims that information got through NA can serve the following purposes.
1. NA can set the goals of the course and guide the selection of contents.
2. The gap between teacher‟s and learner‟s expectation can be minimized by using NA to modify
the syllabus and methodology.
3. The gap between the teachers‟ and learners‟ expected teaching and learning approach can be
identified (Nunan, 1988).

West (1994) described NA as an assistance to the syllabus designer and a means to find out the
acumen among various types of learners and also a framework to design courses based on their
general needs.

Richards (2001), stated that in a language teaching program NA can be used for the following
purposes.
1. To find out the required language skills for a learner to perform a particular role, such as sales
manager, university student.
2. To find out a gap between their present proficiency level and required proficiency.
3. To find out problem areas of the learners (Richards, 2001).

There are different methods and techniques suggested for conducting a NA. The selection of
techniques depends on the purpose of NA. Haque (2014: 4) in his work explained NA with an
example, “If one tries to conduct a NA of the writing problem of the students at tertiary level, the
information can be obtained from the following sources”:
1. Samples of student writing.
2. Test data on students‟ performance.
3. Reports by teachers on typical problems students face.
4. Information from students via interviews and questionnaire.
5. Analysis of text books, teaching and academic writing (Haque, 2014).

The needs, goals and wishes of the learners have to be taken into account to make the students
reach the intended language level. As is indicated by Nunan, „„rather than fitting students to
courses, courses should be designed to fit students” (Nunan, 1999). In other words, no longer are
the students expected to fit in the curriculum, but the curriculum is prepared according to the
language needs of the learners. Therefore, it is important to accept the fact that learners should be
central to all aspects of language teaching (Gözüyeşil, 2014).
Instead of teaching a language according to what the teachers and administrators think their
students‟ needs are, it is vitally important to include the students into the process of decision
making, taking their preferences and wants into account. Therefore, a needs analysis is the
foremost step which leads to preparing a learner centred curriculum within a learner-centred
approach.

According to Duddley-Evans and St. John (2009) there are eight components in today‟s concept
of needs analysis which have been grouped into five broad areas including:
1. target situation analysis and objective needs analysis(e.g. tasks and activities learners will use
English for;
2. linguistic analysis, discourse analysis, genre analysis, i.e. knowledge of how language and
skills are used in the target situations;
3. subjective needs analysis, i.e. learners‟wants, means, subjective needs-factors that affect the
way they learn(e.g. previous learning experiences, reasons for attending the course, expectations)
4. present situation analysis for the purpose of identifying learners‟ current skills and language
use;
5. means analysis, i.e. information about the environment where the course will run (Dudley-
Evans et al., 1998)
.
Meeting Students‟ specific needs, using underlying methodologies and activities of the discipline
and general English, and focusing on the language appropriate to these activities are all of the
main concerns of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Studies (Aliakbari & Boghayeri, 2014).

Needs analysis (NA) is an information gathering process (Boroujeni & Fard, 2013).
Its emergence in language planning can be traced back to the 1970s and its widespread proliferation in the domain
is attributable to its adoption by The Council of Europe’s modern language project (Nunan, 1999)

Needs can refer to what the learners themselves would like to gain from the language course.
This implies that learners may have personal aims, in addition, to the requirements of their study
or job; in other words, wants or desires (Prachanant, 2012)