A Needs-based Evaluation of EAP Syllabuses

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study was to analyze reading comprehension needs of undergraduate students and determine whether EAP syllabuses are developed based on these reading comprehension needs. The other purpose of the study was to see how EAP classes represent reading comprehension needs. To this end, 656 undergraduate students, 75 graduate students, 150 post-graduate students, 75 content teachers and 30 EAP teachers of 15 randomly selected academic disciplines filled in a reading comprehension needs analysis questionnaire. Open ended questions, classroom observation and content analysis of the syllabuses were also used to triangulate the data in terms of sources and methods. The findings indicated that reading comprehension needs were considered either ‘important' or ‘very important' by all participants. Significant differences were found in the perceptions of participants regarding the importance of sub-skills and strategies of reading comprehension needs such as skimming the text, knowledge of general vocabulary and knowledge of specialized terminologies. Classroom observations showed that EAP classes do not address undergraduate students' reading comprehension needs but translate the texts and provide Persian meaning of general and specific words. More importantly, it was found that EAP syllabuses have not been fully developed based on reading comprehension needs of undergraduate students. The findings suggest that an eclectic multi-layered approach to syllabus design which takes into account content-based, task-based, text-based and genre-based approaches and critically considers voices of different EAP stakeholders should be considered in redesigning EAP syllabuses.