A Needs Analysis in a Content and Language Integrated Learning Context: An Upgrade to the First-Year Undergraduates’ English Course in the Faculty of Computing and Technology, University of Kelaniya

Abstract

The Education Sector Development Framework and Program (2013-2017) emphasized the establishment of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) as the theoretical framework of Bilingual Education in Sri Lanka. This incentivized Sri Lankan universities to design CLIL-based English curricula for attaining the academic and professional needs of the tertiary-level learners. Yet, the needs of the learners and the stakeholders to upgrade a CLIL-based English course in the context of ESL tertiary-level education in Sri Lanka by conducting a needs analysis (NA) are still unfathomed. Hence, the primary objective of this study is to conduct a needs analysis for the first-year Engineering Technology (ET) undergraduates in a CLIL context to upgrade the first-year English course of the Faculty of Computing and Technology. For this purpose, this study will integrate six groups of participants. Thus, fifty first-year undergraduates of the ET degree program of the Faculty of Computing and Technology, ten second-year undergraduates of the same degree program, the coordinator of the course, English for Computing and Technology, two English Language Teaching lecturers will be selected according to the purposive sampling method. Consequently, ten industrial professionals will be chosen according to the simple random sampling method. Moreover, two CLIL experts will be selected by using the snowball sampling method. The data collection will be done by incorporating NA questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. This study will be conducted using a mixed approach where the data gathered from the NA questionnaires will be analyzed using descriptive statistics; SPSS, while thematic analysis will be employed to analyse the data collected from the semi-structured interviews. This study will provide a comprehensive understanding of the syllabus criteria that could be established for a CLIL-based English course in Sri Lankan universities to meet the academic and professional needs of the learners.