Assessing EAP Needs for the University

Needs-based courses of instruction in the English language and related academic training in higher education have come into greater focus in recent years. This has been in tandem with developments in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) towards the enhancement of reading and writing skills among second/foreign language learners. Assessing the genre-based language as well as strategic text processing needs of EAP learners is necessarily complex and arduous, but has to be attempted if the course designer is to provide pedagogically viable solutions to help the learner come to grips with the rigours of studying in English at the university. The research reported here acknowledges that the needs analyst has to go beyond a synchronic one-off investigation. Hence, it establishes essential population parameters about Malaysian TESOL undergraduates in the UK through academic needs-oriented surveys and provides insights into how an institutional sample of students strategically process selected research genres. The findings contribute to a generalised needs profile and should bring greater clarity to the thematic as well as the methodological aspects of similar professional efforts.