Business English needs analysis - Ajarn Forum

Doc · 13th May 2008, 15:58

I've been tasked with writing a business English needs analysis form for one of the language centers I work at.

Does anyone know of any examples out there on the web that I may use for inspiration or just sheer plagurism. I've tried googling it but nothing suitable has shown up in the first four or five pages at least.

I have finished my first draft and am reasonably pleased with it but would like to see how others have approached this task before settling on a final version.

Hong Kong Phooey · 13th May 2008, 17:14

Dunno about weblinks but I cribbed this from Cambridge Business English Activities by J. Cordell. It's set out in grid form so students can tick/check which areas they'd like to concentrate on. Learning needs are divided into four skills and I guess there's overlap, e.g. speaking and listening skills tend to go together.

Reading: business letters, reports & memos, faxes, e-mails, newspapers & mags, specialist/trade journals, marketing & Page Ranking materials, reference manuals, trade directories.
Writing: business letters, faxes, e-mails, short msgs, notes & memos, trade articles, reports, presentation notes, formal speeches.
Listening: presentations, phone use, attending meetings, social talk, TV progs & VDOs, radio, accessing recorded material such as voice mail & answerphone msgs, lectures.
Speaking: giving a presentation, phone use, social situations, meetings, negotiations, formal speech making, sell/promote products & services, discuss statistics during meetings, lectures, entertaining visitors & showing them around business premises.

Once you know what the punters want, the next step is levelling them (after you've taken their money, of course).

HTH

tedkarma · 13th May 2008, 17:22

You might also approach it as a SWOT analysis - and then target the functions mentioned by the previous poster.

peelieorion · 13th May 2008, 17:40

As part of your analysis try to incorporate some pre assessment test to assess the skills of people taking the course. Countless people I've met doing English business don't even have basic skills like reading. Assessment here is vastly underysed and you often end up with 2 or 3 very able students grouped with those who have virtually nothing.