An ELI Academic Listening Comprehension Needs Assessment: Establishing Goals, Objectives, and Microskills

Abstract

To conduct a needs assessment of the English Language program at UHM, the systems design approach was adopted to establish goals, objectives, and microskills for two academic listening comprehension courses. Various types of data were gathered and assessed: a literature review of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Academic Listening Comprehension (ALC) theory and methodology, in-house reports, four case studies on university lecture and seminar course, and an ELI staff meeting on tentative microskills, and a student needs questionnaire. In addition to the taxonomy of goals, instructional objectives, and microskills with justification sources, recommendations for improvement in the program design is discussed.