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Needs Analysis and Design of a Master’s Level Academic Reading Course in English
Análisis de necesidades para el diseño de un curso de lectura académica en inglés para estudiantes de maestría
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v26n2.110905Keywords:
academic reading, English for academic purposes, master's students, needs analysis, social sciences, tertiary education (en)análisis de necesidades, ciencias sociales, educación terciaria, estudiantes de maestría, inglés con fines académicos, lectura académica (es)
This article reports an English language needs analysis of Colombian Social Science master’s students. Information from faculty interviews, course syllabi, and student surveys shows that students need English to access and update their disciplinary knowledge through research articles and book chapters to successfully participate in class activities in Spanish, for which low English proficiency and lack of graduate reading skills can be an obstacle. These findings inspired the creation of Reading Research Articles in the Social Sciences course and confirmed the importance of source variety, triangulation, and addressing needs when identified. Methodological and practical contributions are discussed, emphasizing syllabi as key information sources not considered in other needs analyses.
Este artículo analiza las necesidades de uso del inglés en estudiantes colombianos de maestrías en Ciencias Sociales, utilizando entrevistas a profesores, programas de curso y encuestas a estudiantes. El estudio revela que los estudiantes, pese a su bajo dominio y escasas habilidades de lectura en inglés, necesitan este idioma para acceder y actualizar conocimientos disciplinarios, a fin de facilitar su participación en clases dictadas en español. Los hallazgos motivaron el curso Reading Research Articles in the Social Sciences, destacando la importancia de diversas fuentes y la triangulación para identificar necesidades. Se examinan las contribuciones metodológicas y prácticas, con énfasis en el valor de los programas de curso como información clave, a menudo ignorada en otros estudios.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Ricardo Nausa, Jovana Živković, Liubava Sichko
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