A NEED ANALYSIS OF ESP FOR PUBLIC HEALTH STUDENTS

This study is aimed at finding out the students' needs in learning English, particularly English for Public Health as part of ESP regarding four language skills and some language areas.This study was a qualitative descriptive study with 150 students of Public Health Department as the subjects. The data were collected by using a questionnaire. A semi-structured questionnaire was distributed to the participants to gather information related to the students' needs and wants.The study analyzes the data from the closed questions by using simple statistics and the open question by using interpretations.The results showed that the students were confidentin their Reading skillsbut not in Grammar, they also perceived that writing skill is the most important skill to learn. For each sub-skill, the students perceived that the most important skills to learn are including understanding vocabulary from the context (reading), writing correct sentences (writing), pronouncing words correctly (speaking), and listening to English media (listening). Related to their wants, the students not only learn English to support their academic field, but also to prepare after graduation. ______________


INTRODUCTION
Teaching English in higher education has not been established in General English, but is currently given based on the learners' academic background.Learning in higher education is aimed to prepare the students to become professionals in their fields.This requires proper methods and techniques in teaching English that meet the learners' needs both for their studies and for their future careers which cannot be reached using General English since General English, the students' needs or interests cannot be decided (Asrifan, Vargheese, T, & Amir, 2020).Thus, English for Specific Purposes or known as ESP becomes a solution.
ESP is given as a specific required English ability.Here the students will practice all English skills more specifically.They will have more technical and specifiable vocabulary related to their major.ESP is also beneficial for the students to determine their roles of study from global perspective.All the materials taught including articles, videos, activities, and will relate to their major (Amna & Idriani, 2019).
The globalization era and Covid-19 pandemic force the needs of mastering English to become bigger, particularly for students from the health departments.For students from the health departments, ESP is an urgent need since English is widely used in several sources for their courses.ESP for health has a wide range, for example, English for medical students, nursing students, midwifery students, pharmacy students, and public health students and in ESP the students are required to understand the ideas both in simple texts and in more complex texts related to their study field.The better understanding of English reading they own, the easier they reach their success in academic learning.It then leads to their future career success (Thongwichit & Buripakdi, 2021).
Considering the important roles of ESP, it is necessary to do needs analysis as the first step for designing the appropriate teaching materials which meet learners' needs for both academic demands and occupational demands as the basis of ESP.The materials can be obtained by developing teaching materials starting with needs analysis, followed by course design, selection and production of the materials, teaching and learning, and materials evaluation (Dudley-Evans, St John, & Saint John, 1998).
Previous studies had conducted needs analysis for ESP students, particularly students of the health departments (Hidayati, 2018;Ratmo & Sumartini, 2020;Setiawati, 2016;Wulandari, Muchsin, & Tambunan, 2019) and many others.The results of those studies will be beneficial in developing the best materials used in the classroom such as hand-out.Based on the reasons, in responding to the present situation, the study is conducted to find out the needs of health department students, particularly public health students.It comes to the research question that is "What are public health students' needs on ESP?"This study is expected to provide the description of public health students' needs to be used to develop the next stage, namely course design.

ESP
Initiated by Hutchinson & Water, ESP refers to teaching English to certain learners with certain purposes to meet the learners' needs (Allen, 1984;Dudley-Evans et al., 1998;Hutchinson & Waters, 1987).The students of ESP are then required to be able in mastering English related to the specific knowledge and language to master English both in the course and in the future workplace (Setiawati, 2016;Thao & Tham, 2018).The various types of professions require the appropriate teaching methods which meet the learners' needs including certain vocabularies and texts about their academic situations and future careers (Hidayati, 2018;Kusni, 2013).
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) are branches of ESP.EAP is to guide the students to master academic English such as reading an academic document and making academic notes, including critical reading, selective reading, and index reading.In EAP, the students are expected to be able in making academic essays (Guan, 2016).Meanwhile, EOP is designed by emphasizing the use of language in the workplace in which the language needs are different from one another (Tan, 2016).

English Skills
Alongside the language skills mastery, the students of the health departments are required to be able to communicate in English both written and spoken including conveying and getting some information about their study fields.Writing skills cannot be separated from reading skills since both skills are the parameter of an individual's literacy ability (Henao, 2017).Both form a strong connection with each other to foster effective written communication.In writing, the students are expected to bringboth their ideas and feeling in the written form while in reading, they have to get some ideas and information from a written text (Maria, 2020;Wahyuningrum, 2022).When the students develop their competencies in reading and writing, they are required to expose themselves to tasks of reading materials and writing.It then facilitates them to be able to read and write effectively (Sadiku, 2015).
Meanwhile, two other language skills, namely listening and speaking are also essential for the students to learn.Those two skills are parts of communication skills (Barbara, Simaibang, & Sari, 2022;Davis &Tahrun, 2022).Mastering English speaking becomes an urgent need for the learners of ESL and EFL while listening skill requires an individual's active involvement (Babita, 2013;Uzer, 2017).Listening and speaking skill is closely connected and worked simultaneously in real life.Therefore, the integration of both skills enhances oral communication effectively to reach meaningful and purposeful communication in real life.(Sadiku, 2015).In short, mastering English skills will help the students in understanding the situation of communication.

Need Analysis
Need Analysis refers to assessing the communicative needs of the learners and their methods of reaching the specific teaching objectives.Needs analysis is purposed to collect the information about the learners' needs and to define the target situation and environment of learning ESP (Otilia, 2020).The first step of developing materials is needs analysis as the step to discover the method, materials, tasks, activities, and the environment in English learning which meet the students' needs to support their success in the academy and in their future careers.In needs analysis, there is a process of acquiring the knowledge about the students' needs as the parts of developing materials and curriculum.Needs analysis plays the important role in creating the appropriate learning systems and processes to reach the learning goals (Rokhyati, 2013).
Target needs and learning needs are two types of needs (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987).Target needs are those needed by the learners to be able to communicate in the situation target.Meanwhile, learning needs are those needed by the learners to learn.Target needs are categorized into three that are necessities, lacks, and wants.Necessity is the ability the students are required to master, lacks is the ability the students have not mastered and wants are the ability the students expect to master.
To get the information of the students' needs, there are three stages to carry out namely planning, collecting data, and putting information into the analysis.The planning step is about arranging the questions related to the students' needs which are covered in the questionnaire.The questionnaire is then distributed to the participants to collect data.Finally, the data obtained from the questionnaire about the students' needs are analyzed as the consideration for the next stage of materials development, namely a teaching syllabus(Jeczelewiski in Yana, 2016).The instruments in needs analysis are the skills needed, the obstacles faced, the perspectives of the topics needed, and the component of communicative competence (Syakur, Zainuddin, & Hasan, 2020).

METHODS
Participants of this study were 150 public health students at the second semester in STIKES Surya Global Yogyakarta who attended English Intermediate.The students are from four concentrations named Hospital Management, Health Information System, Health Promotion, and Reproduction Health.This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach to get a complete and real description of the objects of study.This study collect the data using a semi structured questionnaire adapted from (Ekayati, Manurung, & Yenni, 2020;Ibrahim, 2016;Setiawati, 2016) containing both closed-ended questions and open-ended questions.The closed-ended questions are to obtain the data about selfrating in four skills and other language skills, the difficulties of learning English, the importance of four English skills, their methods in learning English, and the goals for learning English.The study conducted simple statistics presented in percentages to analyse these data.Meanwhile, the open-ended question is to get information about the students' wants in learning English and this study conducted interpretation to analyse these data.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Based on the data obtained from students' responses to the questionnaire, the findings are shown in the following tables.The first question to ask is about how the participants self-rate their English skills and other language areas as follows.Table 2 above demonstrates the participants' self-grading of four English skills and other language areas, including general and academic vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.The data shows that the students dominantly rated themselves as fair in all four language skills and pronunciation.Reading skill is the top rating (75.3%) followed by Writing skills, General Vocabulary, Pronunciation, Speaking skills, and Listening skills.It is seen that the students rated themselves weak in two others language areas namely scientific vocabulary (67.3%) and grammar (53.3%).How the students rated themselves about the language skills is related about how they perceived the difficulties of each skill and language area.Table 3 shows that the students found almost all the skills difficult especially scientific vocabulary (72%), grammar (68%), correct pronunciation (64%), listening (57.3%), speaking (52.7%) and general vocabulary (52%).In the other side, the students did not find writing difficult for them (51.3%) and for reading comprehension, the students thought that it was medium difficulty since 42.7% of them found it difficult and 44.7% of them found it easy, while rest 12.7% of them did not have any idea about the options.The table 4 shows that public health students regarded all skills are important to learn.Writing skill was the first in important to get almost all respondents 149 of 150 (99.3%) agreement.It was then followed by reading, speaking, and general vocabulary with the same percentage (98%), listening, grammar, and pronunciation with 96.7%, and scientific vocabulary (93.3%).For reading sub-skills, it is noticeable that the respondents perceived that all the reading sub-skills are important.Understanding vocabulary from the context get the most dominant 146 (97%) followed by understanding main points of the text 140 (93%), reading extra references 132 (88%), reading course hands out and reading texts from the internet with each 131 (87%) and reading to find specific information in a textbook 130 (87%).The table 6 describes the writing subskills perceived important by the students.It is obviously seen that all sub-skills are perceived important with the range is (67%-99%).Almost all students (148) perceived writing correct sentences as important skill, followed by using appropriate vocabulary and using suitable style (144 each), using correct punctuation and spelling (142), writing wellstructured paragraphs (141), evaluating and revising writing (135), developing ideas (139), and organizing and planning writing (125).Meanwhile, writing lab report, writing summary and paraphrasing, and writing research report were ranked the lowest.
As for speaking and listening, the following table 7 and table 8 describe that the respondents perceived pronouncing the words correctly as the top rank 144 (96%) followed by asking for information 137 (91%), participating in academic/professional discussion 130 (87%), asking and answering questions 128 (85%), and giving presentation 104 (69%).For listening sub-skills, the students regarded listening to the English media and listening to get specific information as the most important skills 140 and 139 (93%) followed by listening to conversation on general and/or specific topics 136 (91%), and listening to lecturers 114 (76%).As for the learning activities preferred by the students, the students provided various answers as follows.It is noticed that in table 9, the respondents preferred some activities.The students regarded the translation of texts into Indonesian 143 (95%) and multiple-choice questions 142 (95%) as the most preferred activities in learning English followed by translation of texts into English 137 (91%), matching 135 (90%), True/False questions 131 (87%), discussion 126 (84%), gap filling 121 (81%), simulations 113 (75%), and role plays 105 (70%).Two activities namely writing paragraphs and writing summary and paraphrasing are considered important but got the lowest rank each 85 (57%).Writing essay is the only activity considered unimportant by the students.Only 72 respondents (48%) considered writing essay as important learning activities.The table 10 above asked the students about the methods they prefer to choose in learning English.There is no significant numbers of students choosing certain methods.However, there are 96 participants (64%) who preferred copying (the teacher's note) from the board, followed by memorizing 83 (55.3%).It seems that the students were accustomed to be taught in traditional method than by using ICT 53 (35.4%) or audio-visual aids 51 (34%).The last item of closed-ended questions is about their general goals of learning English.The table above showed that the participants' goals in learning English were either helping them understanding the fieldrelated materials or preparing the career as professionals 105 (25.3%).It seems that not only EAP but also EOP needed by them in ESP.
In addition, the participants were also asked an open question about their wants in learning English as described in the following table.From table 12, there were variations of participants' answers.However, to make it easier to analyze, the answers were then categorized into some categories including (1) learning English to master four language skills and other language areas (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation), (2) learning English to communicate, (3) learning English to prepare TOEFL and future career.
The first category about mastering four language skills and other language areas was the dominant answers in brief and clear answers.Beside four skills, it seems that the participants want to master vocabularies and pronunciation.Although they have known some vocabularies, they feel that they lost some vocabularies because they hardly ever practice them.
The second category was related to the first one but it tends to communication ability.This category refers to the participants' wants to have a smooth communication with foreigners.Some of them also want to go abroad so that they need to master English to communicate.Some participants' answers were also related to how they wanted to master TOEFL as seen in the third category.English is important for the students to prepare them in a job seeking, job interview, and at the workplace as professionals.

Discussion
From the findings, on how the students rate themselves of four skills and other language areas, it is obviously seen that the students are "Fair" in Reading skill and "Weak" in Grammar.It means that they are in confidence about their reading skills, but they find it difficult to master grammar.It is then supported by the data of types of difficulty which describe that they found scientific vocabulary and grammar as the most difficult skills.It is interesting to find out the motivation why they are confident with reading, but are not confident with their grammar and vocabulary.Thus, it needs further research to find out the answer.
While they are in confidence with their skills, the students perceived that writing skill is the most important skill to learn.It is in line with (Henao, 2017)that reading and writing are interconnected each other as a parameter of an individual's literacy ability.For each sub-skill, the students perceived that the most important skills to learn are including understanding vocabulary from the context (reading), writing correct sentences (writing), pronouncing words correctly (speaking), and listening to English media (listening).The result of t independent test was the mean of experiment group higher than mean of control group(Jaya, 2021).
Regarding the learning activities, the students preferred some activities during the learning process.Although they provided various answers, the most dominant activities preferred by the students are translation of English text into Indonesian, doing multiplechoice questions, translation Indonesian texts into English, and matching.It seems that translation activities in learning English are still interesting and perceived effective for the students.Related to learning methods, there is no significant method used by the students since the distribution of the answers is average, however, the result shows that the students mostly choose copying the teacher's note on board and memorizing as the most learning methods they use.
The findings of the students' goals in learning English are in line with the theory that ESP focuses both academic and the professional needs of the students.The students not only learn English to support their academic field but also to prepare after graduation.This supported the theory of (Hidayati, 2018;Kusni, 2013;Setiawati, 2016) that ESP needs to facilitate the students' need in academic field and future careers.This result is in line with the students' opinion about their wants of learning English including mastering all English language skills, practicing communication, and preparing for their professional careers.

CONCLUSION
The students are in confidence with their reading and writing skills, but not with grammar and vocabulary.As for listening and speaking, they are similar in results.The students do not put on an effort of both skills nor find them easy to learn.In this study, it also found that most students still preferred the traditional methods to learn English as copying materials on the board, memorizing, and translating.The students are also in agreement that both EAP and EOP are important to learn in ESP.The students also expect to master English of all skills to be able to communicate with foreigners and to prepare their future career as professionals.Thus, the future ESP class must be tailored to these needs as obtained through needs analysis regarding the skills or aspects will be focused on the ESP program.The materials to be designed in course design must also be relevant to the students' field or study as well as their needs on future careers.

Vol 5 ,
No 2 (2022): ESTEEM A NEED ANALYSIS OF ESP FOR PUBLIC HEALTH STUDENTS |

Vol 5 ,
No 2 (2022): ESTEEM A NEED ANALYSIS OF ESP FOR PUBLIC HEALTH STUDENTS |