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Needs analysis dates back to 1920s when Michael West proposed this concept. In1970s, Council of Europe advocated to bring this concept into ESP (English for SpecificPurpose) study. Now it is also applied into the field of GE (General English) (Chen2009:125). But in China, studies on NA have not been emphasized until recent years, withonly a small amount of published papers. In the recent 10 years, only 20 papers have beenpublished on core journals according to the database of CNKI, involving both theoreticaland empirical studies (Synopsis of those papers will be given in Chapter 2). Only Guan(2005) has discussed the function of needs analysis on ESP curriculum development forEnglish undergraduates. However, most English majors in Chinese universities focus onGE instead of ESP. This study will make a relatively comprehensive empirical study on theneeds of English undergraduates. The informants include employers, students and teachers.The result can objectively reflect the necessities, lacks and wants of Englishundergraduates, which provides data base for the innovation and development of Englishteaching in English department, and has certain guiding significance on development ofcurricula, improvement of teaching materials and optimization of assessment systems.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

In this chapter, the author clarifies the definition of “needs”, compares and discussesthe four major needs analysis models, and explains why she chooses Dudley-Evans and St.Johns’ model as the theoretical foundation. In addition, considering the specificity ofEnglish majors, several adaptations have been made to this model to make it moreapplicable.

2.1 Definition of needs
To analyze the needs of learners, first we need to clarify the definition of “needs”.Various scholars have given different meaning of “needs” from different points of view.The first model of needs analysis in the language education is proposed by Richterich(1972) and is about how to meet learners’ communicative requirements in the futurecontext of language use. Widdowson (1981) proposes “goal-oriented” definitions of needs,referring to students’ academic or professional requirements, that is, at the end of theirlanguage course, what is the purpose of learning this language, what level they will achieve,what they have to be able to do. Hutchinson & Waters (1987) divide needs into targetneeds and learning needs. To analyze learning needs, we need to consider learningcondition, learners’ subject knowledge, skills, strategies, motivation and so on. Targetneeds then can be subdivided into necessities, lacks and wants. “Necessities” is the type ofneeds determined by the demands of the target situation, that is, what the learner has toknow in order to function effectively in the target situation. “Lacks” is the gap betweenwhat the learners already know and necessities. “Wants” is the learners’ own view on whattheir needs are. Here Hutchinson and Waters emphasize the active role that learners play.Berwick (1989) divides needs into perceived and felt needs. The former are derived byeducators from facts, what is known, or others’ experience. The latter are learners’ ownsubjective needs or desires. According to Brindley (1989), needs can be classified asobjectiv本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。