Investigating Student’s Needs for English Language as Foundations for Syllabus Design

Efforts to integrate into the European Union and a rapid economic growth in Albania have led to the growing prevalence of English language, which has become the leading foreign language for communication between experts not only at the international but also national level, as various business documents, contracts, reports, etc., have been widely used by graduates in the field of economics in their daily work. Thus, English language teaching in universities should reflect these changes that are taking place extensively in Albanian society. New syllabuses should put more emphasis on the new skills that current students of economics need to be integrated into the labour market. Through semistructured questionnaires administered to 420 students of the first year studying Business English at the Faculty of Economics and Agribussines, Agricultural University of Tirana, this study aims at identifying their needs for language and communication for future use either for employment or further education purposes. Program design and course development of Business English needs to respond to future student needs for future employment or study purposes. In general, needs analysis plays a key role and is the first step in the process of drafting each subject in the English Language for Specific Purposes, a course characterized by the student centered approach. The results of this study will serve as input to be taken into account for the design of the Business English course at the Faculty of Economics at AUT. The analysis of the research data has provided teachers insights into business English teaching related issues and an essential input in BE syllabus design.