Needs Analysis: ESP Perspective on Genre

Abstract

A great deal about the origin of ESP could be written. Notably, there are three reasons common to the emergence of all ESP: the demands of a Brave New World, a revolution in linguistics, and focus on the learner (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). The author started this paper with the short review of needs analysis, giving a brief explanation about the approaches to needs analysis, with a particular attention to genre analysis. Bhatia (2004) maintains, “Language is power, and the power of language is the ‘power of genre’ (p. 189). Accordingly, power of genre is not only to construct, use, interpret and exploit genres, but also to innovate novel generic forms (Bhatia, 2004). The writer argued genre analysis gives teachers a more central role in preparing the learners to learn. The blame, in the writer’s opinion, does not rest with the learners but with the teachers and genre analysts who treat genre analysis as simply textual artifacts. As Bakhtin (1986) points out genre must be fully mastered to be used creatively (cited in Bhatia, 2004). This paper has established that ESP students need to be scaffolded by teachers in order to understand the construct of any professional genre to enable them to produce these genres effectively. Also, this approach is recommended not only as a basis for teaching ESP but also for the teachers’ professional development. In the same line, genre analysis can enable instructors to become aware of the hidden assumptions and gain insight into pedagogical implications. The main purpose of this article is to elucidate the power of genre in the analysis of students’ needs.

Index items: needs analysis, ESP, genre