The English Material Needs of Economics and Business Students

Abstract This paper aims to describe the analysis of the English Course for Economics and Business students focus on target needs and learning needs. This study involved 260 students from 4 universities in Bali. Data were obtained from questionnaires and interviews. The data which had been collected were then tabulated and analyzed by using descriptive method. The findings of this study showed that conducting needs analysis to ESP course is important as the basis for designing syllabus and material because there was no material available on the market that could fully fit the students’ needs. The economics topic was needed by the students (47%) and (53 %) got difficulty in recognizing core words, and interpret patterns or sequences of words and their meanings systematically. There were 46% of students want to improve their macro skill especially in detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from context, and activating schemata to interpret the text. The input needed by students was a business text (42 %). Pair work as a procedure desired by the students (35 %). Moreover, having group work as a setting (41%) and (38 %) felt that the lecturer must give an example on the instruction and assignment. Keywords: economics and business; English for specific purposes; learning needs; material needs analysis; target needs.