Business English Syllabus Design: Putting Students Needs First

This paper suggests that Needs Analysis functions as a useful tool syllabus designers use to gain insights into their students' target needs. It reports the findings of a Needs Analysis survey used to help determine Business students' academic and professional needs at Al-Ain University of Science and Technology (AAU) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The main objective of this paper is to identify the academic and career needs of business students in the College of Business and to build on these in developing an accurate Business English course. The paper is divided into four sections. Section One provides a theoretical framework for needs-based syllabus design and highlights the most fundamental issues related to Needs Analysis. Section Two provides the methodology the research project was based upon. Section Three shows how the syllabus of the needs-based course was designed, and Section Four provides insights in relation to the limitations of the proposed syllabus.