LANGUAGE NEEDS ANALYSIS OF FIRST YEAR MASTER MARKETING STUDENTS AT EL-BEZ UNIVERSITY OF SETIF

Abstract

The Algerian Master Marketing Students (MMS’s) who graduate from the Department of Commercial Sciences within the Doctoral School (DS) at El-Bez University are always faced with business and marketing documents to be studied. Those documents are written in English. However, the majority of them are not able to read, interact correctly or understand the English language in general and specifically the Marketing discourse used in formal contexts.The present research work is a case study of First year Master Marketing students at the Department of Commercial Sciences within the Doctoral School at El-Bez University (Sétif), which relates on questionnaires and interviews to students and teachers.The study is twofold: First, a needs identification and analysis of the target population’s immediate learning needs is designed and conducted in an academic setting involving the Marketing Students of the Commercial Sciences Department at the aforementioned University. Second, an English course that will fulfil their needs is suggested. The results obtained from this investigation showed that the students under investigation are aware of the importance of English for their studies, but have a low proficiency level in English. They need to learn a mixture of general and specific English terminology, language forms and structures, to develop satisfactory mastery of the four language skills with a special focus on the receptive ones that is reading and listening through a Marketing English Course.