The Need for English for Nursing Purposes Course in a Saudi Arabian Nursing College.

Abstract

Needs analysis (NA) is an information gathering process that is implemented to identify the learners’ needs for learning a language so that they would be taught the relevant materials. Moreover, NA is a very important procedure before designing teaching materials for English for Specific Purposes. For the current study, the NA framework that the present researcher developed was based on the available NA literatures, which were used to explore the views about English for Nursing Purposes (ENP) needs of the nursing undergraduates. Moreover, one of the key objectives of this study was to find out how the foundation year programme prepares the nursing students for their nursing studies. This empirical research was conducted in a nursing college and in an English language institute in a one university in Saudi Arabia. The study was informed by the interpretive paradigm and based on a case study methodology utilising mixed methods (semi-structured interviews and questionnaires) to investigate nursing students’ needs. The initial phase of data collection was based on conducting semi- structured interviews with five English language teachers, five nursing teachers and five nursing students. The subsequent quantitative phase involved administering a questionnaire among of three groups of participants: 62 nursing students, 24 nursing tutors and 42 English language teachers (128 participants in total). The interviews were analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis, reviewing responses, grouping related responses and identifying common themes. Moreover, the questionnaires were analysed quantitatively using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) version 24.0. The qualitative and quantitative findings revealed that English is extensively used both in nursing studies and future career. The findings showed that the nature of English language course that taught in the foundation year program before joining the nursing college was not adequate to prepare the nursing students to meet their academic and professional needs. The overall findings of the study revealed the great need for the implementation of an ENP course in the current nursing college. On the basis of the results of this study, both nursing tutors and English language teachers expressed their willingness for collaborative teaching to make the ENP courses constructively associated with the students’ academic specialisations.