Understanding Needs of Mining Students Learning English

Abstract

The paper deals with the challenges in language education that technical universities face. The authors give a brief overview of linguistic auditing and offer a closer look at needs analysis in the context of teaching English for specific purposes. The authors suggest considering the potential of linguistic auditing as a tool for the profound needs analysis of the target professional situation and its impact on foreign languages syllabus design in technical universities. The paper also presents the results of a feedback questionnaire received from ex-mining students in this regard. Keywords—linguistic auditing; needs analysis; problem-solving approach; case studies; communicative competence