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Needs Analysis and Curriculum Development in EAP: An Example of a Critical

Approach

Sarah Benesch

TESOL Quarterly , Vol. 30, No. 4. (Winter, 1996), pp. 723-738.

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Needs Analvsis and Curriculumv l lop m itin EAP: An Example

of a Critical ApproachSARAH BENESCH

The College of Staten Island The City Universityof ew York

Needs analysis research in English for academic purposes (EM )/English for special purposes is mainly descriptive. Researchers identifyand describe existing elements of the target situation to provide thebasis for curriculum development. Critical needs analysis, on the otherhand, considers the target situation as a site of possible reform. It takesinto account the hierarchical nature of social institutions and treatsinequality, both inside and outside the institution, as a central concern.This article explores the literature on needs analysis, offers criticalneeds analysis as an alternative approach to examining target situations,and describes an example of critical needs analysis and EAP curriculumdevelopment in a paired ESL writing/psychology course at a U.S.college.

E nglish for academic purposes (EAP)/English for special purposes(ESP) curriculum development is guided by learner needs defined byJohns and Dudley-Evans (1991) as the identifiable elements of stu-dents' target English situations (p . 299). The research on learner needs,known as needs analysis or needs assessment involves surveying students

about their backgrounds and goals (Frodesen, 1995; Tarone, 1989);consulting faculty about course requirements (Johns, 1981); collectingand classifying assignments (Braine, 1995; Horowitz, 1986); observingstudents in naturalistic settings, such as lecture classes, and noting thelinguistic and behavioral demands (McKenna, 1987); or combiningthese techniques to obtain a description of assignments, discourse, andclassroom behavior (Prior, 1995; Ramani, Chacko, Singh, Glendinning,1988). The rationale for needs analysis is that by identifying elements ofstudents' target English situations and using them as the basis of EAP/ESP instruction, teachers will be able to provide students with thespecific language they need to succeed in their courses and futurecareers (Johns, 1991).


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(1991) believes that needs analysis is influenced by the ideologicalpreconceptions of the analysts (p . 7) an d that needs do not have ofthemselves an objective reality (Brindley, 1989, as cited in Robinson, p.7). However, though Robinson acknowledges the political and subjectivenature of needs analysis, she neglects to explain her own ideology whenoffering a taxonomy of needs. Instead she presents that taxonomy asunproblematic aspects of the target situation and students' educationalbackgrounds: study or job requirements, what the user-institution orsociety at large regards as necessary, what the learner needs to do toactually acquire the language, what the students themselves would liketo gain from the language course, what the students do not know orcannot do in English (pp. 7-8). The list is a compilation of the work ofvarious ESP/EAP theorists; no mention is made of why particular items

appear on the list or why others were left out. The impression created isthat they are natural categories, not ones whose choice was influenced byideology.

Taxonomies of needs not only hide their ideological basis but alsodisregard the unequal social positions of the different parties involvedand the possible effects of such inequality on curriculum development.Employers, academic institutions, instructors, and learners are presentedas occupants of a level playing field rather than as players whose differingaccess to power must be considered. For example, in reference toRobinson's list, are what the user-institution . regards as necessaryand what the students themselves would like to gain to be weighedequally even though they are at opposite ends of the social hierarchy?Should students' needs be subordinated to institutional requirements, orshould the institution give up some of its power? And how does one dealwith cases in which students are so assimilated into academic culture thatthey identify study skills as their needs? Should one accept and be guidedby this congruence between students' conceptualization of needs and

institutional requirements or instead be wary of it, suspecting thehegemonic influence of academic traditions? Needs analysis has avoidedquestions about unequal power in the workplace and academia, allowinginstitutional requirements to dominate in the name of so-called authen-ticity, realism, and pragmatism (Benesch, 1993).

The lack of at tention in needs analysis to sociopolitical issues and theireffects on curriculum is due in part to the way soci l ontext is delineatedin the EAP1 iterature. Social context is what takes place outside our own

classrooms (Belcher Braine, 1995, p. xiii) but not very far outside. Itincludes the discourse, classroom interactions, and assignments incourses across the disciplines but excludes the political and economic


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forces that influence life inside and outside academic institutions. Needsanalysis has not considered social issues affecting students' currentacademic lives, such as ambivalence toward studying English or budgetcuts, and those that may affect their future professional lives, such asdeteriorating job opportunities. Yet students may need to examine theseissues to understand the difficulties of pursuing a degree or getting a jobor to participate in political processes that could improve their lives.

Even though the social context of E P is limited to linguistic andbehavioral expectations of academic culture, researchers make claimsabout the social benefits of studying EAP Belcher and Braine (1995), forexample, allege that academic discourse is a source of power for itsusers, even when they are students (p , xvi) as if language conferredpower regardless of students' gender, class, race, nationality, and financial

situation or the economic landscape they will face when entering the jobmarket. However, promoting academic discourse as the key to a secureand powerful position in society avoids issues of power while claiming toattend to them.

LIMIT TIONS OF DESCRIPTIVE PPRO CH

TO NEEDS N LYSIS

Distinctions between descriptive and critical research have been madeby Canagarajah (1993), Herndl (1993), Peirce (1995), and Pennycook(1994a). Pennycook explains that whereas critical research often relieson descriptive or interpretive approaches, it is not merely descriptive;rather, it aims also to be transformative (p. 691). That is, criticalresearch focuses on questions of social and cultural inequality ineducation and aims to change those conditions of inequality it de-scribes (p . 691). In a similar vein, Herndl calls for a more criticalapproach to the largely descriptive and explanatory research on

professional and nonacademic writing, on the grounds that currentresearch reproduces the dominant discourse of its research site andspends relatively little energy analyzing the modes and possibilities fordissent, resistance, and revision (p . 349). The limited, descriptivefocus of research in professional writing reifies dominant academicdiscourses and practices, and ignores the conflicts and struggles amonga range of positions negotiated and sometimes excluded from thedominant discourse (p . 355).

The following two examples highlight the limitations of a descriptiveapproach in needs assessment research. Both studies offer detaileddescriptions of conditions observed and suggestions for student accom-modation rather than resistance or revision. For both examples I offer


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Both examples are from North American contexts. My decision toexclude examples from E P in countries where English is not thenational language is that my teaching experience has been with interna-tional and immigrant students in U.S. colleges. However, the concernsraised about needs analysis in this article apply to other contexts,especially the notion that every academic situation presents a differentset of hierarchical and sometimes contradictory needs, including govern-mental, institutional, departmental, and classroom ones, complicatingthe development of E P curricula. Decisions about how much changecan be effected in the target situation depend on local conditions,including the EAP teacher's status, the receptivity of content teachers,the political climate in the academic institution and country (Pennycook,1994b). A discussion of the possibilities and limitations of activism in

countries where the EAP teacher is not a native is beyond the scope ofthis article. However, I hope that the example of critical needs analysis inan EAP class paired to a large psychology large lecture class, describedbelow in Critical Needs Analysis in a Paired Course, will be useful tothose working in a similar setting around the world.

Descriptive Needs Analysis: In Class Questions

The first example is McKenna's (1987) study of undergraduatestudents' in-class questions related to lecture and course content in anintroductory phonetics course over five semesters. McKenna wanted to

investigate what made questions coherent in a lecture course commu-nity and to use the findings on the nature of discourse communities asthe basis of instructional material in EAP courses (p . 199). Shehypothesized that ESL students' reluctance to ask questions duringlecture classes might be due as much to lack of familiarity with discourseconventions of forming community in a lecture setting as to limitedEnglish. To discover these conventions, McKenna observed andaudiotaped lectures, studied students' notes, and interviewed a group ofstudents (5-10% of the students were nonnative). She found that a smallgroup of students, the members of the discourse community, knew howto get the floor and ask questions without alienating other students orthe teacher. The members of the discourse community did not interruptthe lecture or digress from the material being presented; they askedquestions that allowed the professor to further develop his ideas:

Questions during these lectures were in part the functional equivalents ofresponses in conversation that enthusiastic listeners contribute to develop astory As these responses in conversation are seen as contributing to the


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McKenna (1987) defines the small group of questioners as self-appointed spokespeople for the group who are well-tolerated because

they represent the general interest of the group (p. 199). O n the otherhand , questioners who frequently interrupted the flow of discoursewere hardly tolerated in this discourse community (p. 199). McKennaconcluded from he r study that EAP should not encourage ESL studentsto ask questions when they d o no t understand terms since nativespeakers hardly ever do (p . 199) . She also cautions that frequen trequests on the pa rt of ESL students for repetition of information couldbe perceived as an indirect challenge to the lecturer's ability to performeffectively (p. 200). McKenna recommends that EAP classes teachparticular types of questions that neither challenge nor interrupt thelecturer: We work with ways of talking and acting in EAP to reshape

these confrontational ways of forming community to ways that are morerespectful of the lecturer (p . 201).

Limitations

McKenna (1987) accepts the conditions she observes as normative. Inher study those conditions were the lecturer's dominance of classroomdiscourse and the active participation of only a small group of enthusi-astic listeners. She also accepts that requests for repetition of informa-tion are considered interruptions in this discourse community whereasrequests for additional information from a small group of students aredeemed appropriate means of forming community.

critical approach to the data would have led to a search for solutionsto ESL students' linguistic and social problems in the lecture class. Forexample, when McKenna (1987) discovered that ESL students wanted toask for repetition of information, she might have worked with facultymembers to make time for such requests. O r she might have encouraged

the use of peer discussion groups to break up the lecture and givestudents time to answer each other's questions. After all, students paytuition and should be allowed to participate in ways that increase theirunderstanding. They should not remain silent in order to reassure theirteachers that their lectures are adequate. In a descriptive needs analysissuch as McKenna's, the researcher does not look for ways to modifycurrent conditions but instead aims to fit students into the status qu o byteaching them to make their behavior an d language appropriate.

Descriptive Needs Analysis Sociology Seminar

Prior's (1995) research is also descriptive, though his ethnographic


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responses and the students' interpretation and execution of writing tasksand interpretation of the professor's responses. However, even thoughPrior claims to examine the sociohistoric context (p . 60) of the courseshe observes, his analysis is more psychological than social. He examinesthe interpersonal dynamics between students and their professors whileneglecting questions about the social causes of those dynamics.

Prior (1995) investigated a graduate sociology seminar in which sevenstudents worked as research assistants for their professor, West, who wasprincipal investigator. Because Park, one of the two ESL students, wasnew to West's study (other students had been previously employed asresearch assistants in the same study), she assigned him to run somestatistical analyses and produce tables to accompany the [technical]report (p . 72 ). In an interview, West explained that because Park was

new to the project he shouldn't be subject to the same requirement ofproducing a finished paper (p . 73) as were students who had been withthe project for two quarters. She admits to having differing expectationsof students. She also admits that although she does not have a sense of[Park's] writing capacity at this point (p . 73 ), she expects him tocontinue to work on her study for his dissertation. Park, when inter-viewed, said that West had told him what to do for the seminar (statisticalanalysis, production of tables), that he had asked for a different

assignment, that his request was ignored, and that his assignment hadnot been the true w ork (p. 73) that other students had been assigned.In his analysis, Prior notes that the students' work and the professor'sresponses were dominated by [West's research], the departmentalprogram, and disciplinary forums (p . 76).

imitations

In spite of their influence on the students' work and West's responses,Prior (1987) does not pose questions about the politics of graduate workand its effects on the ESL students he studied. How, for example, did thetraditional paradigm of hiring graduate students to carry out theprofessor's research, rather than allowing them to generate their ownprojects, affect the two ESL students? Would Park have been better offwith an assignment that developed his writing abilities than he was withthe number-crunching task he was assigned? How can a professor withonly seven students in a course have little sense of one of the students'

writing ability? MThat does this study, and others like it, tell us about thetreatment of ESL graduate students? Is it common for U.S. universities tominimize the linguistic demands on these students rather than helpingthem ith the tr e ork ?


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modate the ESL graduate students that they accept and whose tuitionthey collect. Instead he concludes from his research that EAE' should

direct less attention to static conceptualizations of communicativecompetence that lead us into well-structured knowledge representationsand more attention to considering how we can facilitate students'development of the communicative flexibility needed to achieve commu-nication in dynamic, situated interaction (p . 77). In othe r words,though Prior does not locate the problem with the students, he believesthat the solution lies in their flexible adjustment to the conditions theyencounter, no matter how undesirable those conditions might be.

EFINING T HE SOCIAL CONTEX T O F EAP

Prior's work raises questions about how social context is defined in theEAP literature. What does social mean? How is the context delineated?Below I explore EAP theorists' definitions of social context and how theylimit E m ' s role in educational reform.

Slyales (1990) an d Johns (1990) have explained that their work is areaction to cognitivist ESL composition research and pedagogy thatfocus on writers' internal processes and ignore the social context ofwriting. Although Swales and Johns claim to take in to account the socialcontext of academic writing in their research, they define that contextnarrowly as the demands academic assignments make on students.Swales, for example, calls for less attent ion to the cognitive relationshipbetween the writer and the writer's internal world an d more to therelationship between the writer and on his or her ways of anticipatingand coun tenancing the reactions of the intended readership (p . 220).

Joh ns (1990) also highlights the reactions of an academic audience inher comparison of cognitivism and social constructionism She contrasts

those who focus on the learner as crea tor of language or the cognitiveelements of the writing process with others who, like the socialconstructionists, will be conce rne d primarily with the audience an dconventions and language of the discourse community to which theaudience belongs (p . 33 ). Th e audience of student writing, according toJohns, consists of members of academic discourse communities with the

power to accept or reject writing as coherent, as consistent with theconventions of the target discourse community (p . 31). Students, on the

othe r hand, are novices who must surrender their own language an dmodes of thought to the requirements of the target community (p. 33).Johns (1990) claims tha t her approach to EAP is social construc tionist

an d quotes Berlin (1988) approvingly to bolster that claim However


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behavior. Instead, this rhetoric, which Berlin calls social-epistemic notsocial constructionist, is a political act involving a dialectical interactionengaging the material, the social, and the individual writer, with lan-guage as the agency of mediation (p . 488). That is, each of thesefeatures of the context is affected by the interaction: The individualwriter does not surrender to material, social, or linguistic requirements.Instead, the material, the social, and the subjective are at once theproducers and the product of ideology, and ideology must be continuallychallenged so as to reveal its economic and political consequences forindividuals (p . 489).

Though the EAP literature contains instances of students beingconsulted about what or how they will learn (Frodesen, 1995; Hutchinson

Waters, 1987; Tarone, 1989), E P has not critically analyzed academic

content and teaching, nor has it encouraged students to examine issuesthat affect their academic lives and future careers, such as funding foreducation and job security. As Raimes (1993) points out, Social construc-tionism in TESOL literature has been stripped of its ideological basis andfails to offer an approach that authentically examines and questions theaims of education and society (p. 308).

CRITICAL NEEDS ANALYSIS IN PAIRED CO UR SEIn this section I describe an example of critical needs analysis and EAP

curriculum development in a paired ESL/psychology course. In thecourse I took into account conflicting interests from various levels of theacademic hierarchy and explored possibilities for modifying the targetsituation.

Course Description

During the 1994-1995 academic year, I taught two sections of anintermediate-level ESL writing class linked to a psychology survey course,one in the fall semester and one in the spring. The psychology coursewas a biweekly lecture with about 450 students, taught by two members ofthe psychology department, Professors Richter and Allen.2 Richter, thechairperson of the psychology department, and Allen, an associateprofessor, alternated lecturing on the following topics: history of psychol-

ogy, research methods, brain/behavior, perception, consciousness, de-velopment, learning, motivation and emotion, memory, personality,abnormal behavior, treatment, social psychology, and industrial organi-


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zation psychology. The students final grade was based on scores on threemultiple-choice exams covering four to five topics each. I attendedalmost every lecture and took notes. My other data included twointerviews with Richter, precourse and postcourse student question-naires, written assignments from my class, student questions aboutlecture and textbook material, an audiotape of Richter s visit to my class(discussed below), and interviews with students.

ontradictory Demands

The target situation presented a number of contradictory demands onstudents from various levels of the academic hierarchy: university,college, departmental, and classroom. Some of the requirements and

conditions I discovered through needs analysis are listed below inhierarchical order. Those at the top of the list, where power is concen-trated, were the most immutable.

University Level

All students must pass a writing assessment test, consisting of a 50-minute argumentative essay, as a prerequisite to many college-levelcourses and to graduation.

College Level

To minimize expenditures, the psychology lectures were held in anauditorium and recitation sections eliminated.

Departmental Leuel Psychology)

To minimize expenditures, students were given machine-scoredmultiple-choice tests rather than short-answer or essay exams.

Students were expected to cover a great deal of material in a shortperiod of time.

Students were expected to apply psychological concepts to their ownlives.

Departmental Level English)

The goals of the class were

to help students pass the university-wide argumentative essay and


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One set of contradictions presented by the target situation was thatalthough the lectures and textbook presented a huge volume of materialand Richter was aware of the limitations of a survey course, he hopedstudents would apply the information presen ted in the lectures to theirlives. For example , because some of th e students were pa rents, he h ope dthe information on development would guide them in raising theirchi ldren. Unfortunately, however, because budget cuts in prior years hadeliminated recitation sections and increased the number of studentsenrolled in the lecture, it was up to the students to make connectionsbetween the material and their experience without the benefit ofdiscussion with peers o r professors.

Reinforcing the contradiction between superficial coverage of a largenumber of topics and the goal of deeper intellectual inquiry and

connec tion making was multiple-choice testing that called for memoriza-tion of definitions rather than complex understanding of the material.In addition, although students were enrolled in a traditional lecturecourse that required no writing beyond note taking, they had to pass auniversity-mandated essay exam as a prerequisite to freshman composi-tion an d ot he r academic courses.

The above list consists of requirements to be fulfilled by students andconditions they were expected to live with. I d o not call them le rner needsbecause this term confuses institutional demands and learners' desiresand because it valorizes features of the target situation that may not beconducive to learning. My students did no t nee d large lectures o rmultiple-choice tests. These forms of teaching and testing resulted frompolitical an d fiscal considerations (defu nding of public higher educationand administrative decisions ab out where to save money), not pedagogi-cal ones.

Critical Needs nalysis as a Guide toE P Curriculum Development

Rather than simply identifying existing conditions and attempting toada pt students to them , a process Simon (1992) calls narrowing ofhu ma n capacities to fit particular forms (p . 14 2) , critical needs analysisacknowledges existing forms, including power relations, while searchingfor possible areas of change. Below I explain how the conditions Idiscovered in critical needs analysis guided a curriculum development

process that involved both the under standing of necessity an d thetransformation of necessity (p . 144 .

To help students manage the contradictory demands of the targetsituation an d to create possibilities for change I developed three types of


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which challenged the requirements, and those which worked outside therequirements to create possibilities for social awareness an d action.

Dealing W ith the Limitations

The restrictions of the target situation were the unmanageableamount of material covered in the psychology course, multiple-choicetesting, and lectures rather than dialogue. The activities I assigned todeal with the existing structures were typical of adjunct instruction,including having students compare and review their lecture notes, askingstudents to write their own multiple-choice test questions and to takeeach others' tests, and assigning each student a topic from the textbookto present orally to the class. These activities, which neither ignored nor

disturbed existing conditions, responded to students' need to processthe lecture and textbook material and prepare for tests.

hallenging the Requirements

Two activities opposed the status quo by challenging the traditionalposition of student as passive listener: student-generated questions forRichter to answer in the psychology class and Richter's visit to the ESLclass. Neither of these activities was part of the existing course structureand would not have come abou t without my intervention. However, theyalso would not have been possible without Richter's gracious andenthusiastic cooperation.

In the case of the questions about the lecture, students wrote theseboth individually and in groups, clarifying the meaning through revisionand editing the language for correctness. They decided collaborativelywhich questions to present to kchter, who answered them beforebeginning a lecture. This activity took place three times a semester. Some

of the questions were requests for clarification of concepts alreadypresented; others , such as those listed below, revealed concerns that hadnot been addressed either in lectures or in the textbook: Why d o Isometimes get angry about nothing? How can a person kill ano the rperson? How come a person's childhood sometimes affects theiradulthood in a bad o r good way? Is it possible to tell the psychologicalstatus of a person by looking at the ir physical appearance? Is behaviordetermined by our environment, or d o we choose the way we behave?

What's the difference between needing drugs psychologically andneeding them physically? Is it true that people have two personalities?Although these questions shifted some control over the lecture

content from the professors to the students, the activity was limited by


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came from Richter in an auditorium, a setting not conducive to furtherrequests for clarification or elaboration. So, although the students'questions guided the professor's discourse during the time devoted toanswering them, they did not interrupt the usual flow of discourse fromteacher to student.

more fruitful interruption to teacher-dominated discourse wasRichter's visit to my spring semester class. s they had done for thelectures, the students prepared questions about the topics they werestudying at that time in anticipation of the visit. Unlike the lecture class,however, the classroom setting and small class size promoted a comfort-able exchange of ideas. Removed from what he called the horribleanonymity of the auditorium, Richter was relaxed and informal. Know-ing that some of the students were Russian Jews, he told about his

Russian Jewish parents' immigration and his upbringing and education.He then asked the students to introduce themselves. Finally, he answeredsome of their questions in great detail, allowing time for students todiscuss the answers and raise new questions. The students' writtencomments about Richter's visit highlighted the humanizing effect of thesmall discussion class format:

The feeling of Dr. Richter being a celebrity is gone. Next time, I will have noproblems asking him a question.

The whole visit was built like a dialog. We talked to each other. Not likedur ing the lecture hours. There we have just to sit and listen, but not to ask o rjoke. During the lecture it's hard to use our experience toward the theme, butit was possible o n Thursday.

The class was not like the psychology lectures. Richter did not talk muchabout the book or what was going to be in the exam. It was a nice and rareopportunity that we could get direct responses from the professor for everyquestion we wanted to ask.

I learned more than I did in the lecture class because I'm able to ask him

questions face to face instead of yelling out in the big class. In conclusion,I really like the way he teaching the class which consists of lot of outsideinformation and experiences. Also I was truly benefitted by his clear an d deepexplanations. I hope that he would have more chances to teach us again.

What comes through in the students' remarks is that they want and,one might say, need small classes, informal discussion, discourse thatincludes humor and personal anecdotes, and the opportunity to ask newquestions. It is interesting to note that in the last comment the student

wrote that she wanted Richter to teach us again. She included this wisheven though she attended his lectures twice a week but seemed not tohave considered these occasions on which he taught.


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reating Possibilities

The third type of activity transcended institutional requirements tocreate possibilities for social awareness an d action. I briefly mention twoexamples of this type of activity.

The first was a series of research an d writing assignments on anorexia,a topic whose definition students were required to memorize for anupcoming test but that was not presented in any depth during thelecture. Although dozens of topics received cursory attention in thepsychology curriculum, anorexia was a good candidate for criticalscrutiny, being rich in social implications. Above all, it involves studyingwomen and power in society, including how much space they areexpected to take up and how much they allow themselves to occupy

(Bartky, 1988). In a forthcoming article I discuss the anorexia curricu-lum in detail, including the opportunity it created for women in the classto have a greater voice and the resistance of some men in the class tostudying a topic that at first seemed not to involve them (Benesch, inpress). For the purposes of the present article, I note only that thecritical study of anorexia offered students the opportunity to examinethe social significance of one of the topics briefly mentioned in a lecture,an opportunity that the psychology course would not otherwise havepresented.

The second example of an activity presenting possibilities for socialawareness resulted from political events: the election of a new governorin NewYork State who vowed to cut funding for public higher education.Here was a chance to help students understand concretely the relation-ship between governmental politics and education and to encouragetheir participation in democratic processes. They had already noticedthe effects of the defunding of public education ( Why is it [psychology]such a big class? ) without understanding the causes. Yet, they were

unaware of the governor's proposals and of student government andfaculty senate efforts to fight the cuts, including a letter-writing campaignand demonstrations at the state capitol and city hall. When I informedthem about these activities and suggested writing letters in class, somewere cynical about political activism. However, they agreed to write an dsend letters explaining how a tuition increase and cuts in financial aidwould affect them personally. Some also attended demonstrations andwere impressed by the numbers of students who participated. Whether

the letters and demonstrations had an effect on the legislators is notclear. Some of the funds that were cut were restored and tuition wasincreased less than originally proposed, but the campaign to defund theuniversity continues Nonetheless students were involved in the process


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needs as students in a U.S. university and therefore factored it into thecurriculum.

ON LUSION

Needs analysis is a political a nd subjective process. The identificationof elements of a target situation depends on the analyst's ideology, asRobinson (1991) has pointed out. Some will look a t the situation an d seewhat students must do to perform well in that situation; others will seewhere possibilities for change exist. Critical needs analysis assumes thatinstitutions are hierarchical and that those at the bottom are oftenentitled to more power than they have. It seeks areas where greaterequality might be achieved.

Critical needs analysis is a reaction to the pragmatic stance of E M

ESP: Changing existing forms is unrealistic whereas promoting them ispractical. For example, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) promote a

learning-centered approach while dismissing a learner-centered ap-proach to ESP as a theoretical attack on established procedures ratherthan a practical approach to course design (p. 72) . learner-centeredapproach to ESP is impract ical, they believe, because since mostlearning takes place within institutionalized systems, it is difficult to seehow such an ap proa ch could be taken, as it more or less rules out pre-determin ed syllabuses, materials, etc. (p . 72) .

Hutchinson an d Waters (198 7), an d others, may have underestimatedthe possibilities for change offered by existing structures. The mostimportant lesson I learned from teaching the paired psychology/ESLclass was that Richter was receptive to my suggestions for chan ge becausehe was as opposed to the working conditions as I was. He was as much avictim of budget cuts resulting in hug e lectures as the students:

I am so bothered by the horrible anonymity of that room. I walk around. I goas far as the [microphone] cord will go. I'm lecturing and trying to move yhead around. There's no relationship. It's a terrible thing for them too. Younever know where they are. You don't know what they're getting, what they'reenjoying. (personal communication, December 1994)

Richter did not defend the status quo, nor did he expect me topromote it. He was open to the students' questions and to visiting myclass. He did not monitor or restrict the other activities in my class. Ofcourse, not all faculty are as open to suggestions as he was, yet I haveworked with others who were equally flexible.

Colleagues across the disciplines can be allies in the quest for greater


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CKNOWLEDGMENT

I thank Trudy Smoke for her useful feedback.

THE UTHOR

Sarah Benesch is Associate Professor of English and ESL coordinator at the Collegeof Staten Island, City University of New York. She has edited and contributed to twocollections of essays, End ing Remediation: Link ing ES L and Content i n Higher Educationpublished by TESOL, and ES L i n America: Myths and Possibilities(Boynton/Cook).

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Needs Analysis and Curriculum Development in EAP: An Example of a Critical ApproachSarah BeneschTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 30, No. 4. (Winter, 1996), pp. 723-738.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28199624%2930%3A4%3C723%3ANAACDI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

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References

ESL, Ideology, and the Politics of PragmatismSarah BeneschTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 27, No. 4. (Winter, 1993), pp. 705-717.

Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28199324%2927%3A4%3C705%3AEIATPO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K

Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing ClassJames BerlinCollege English , Vol. 50, No. 5. (Sep., 1988), pp. 477-494.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-0994%28198809%2950%3A5%3C477%3ARAIITW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

Critical Ethnography of a Sri Lankan Classroom: Ambiguities in Student Opposition toReproduction through ESOL

A. Suresh CanagarajahTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 27, No. 4. (Winter, 1993), pp. 601-626.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28199324%2927%3A4%3C601%3ACEOASL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

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Teaching Discourse and Reproducing Culture: A Critique of Research and Pedagogy inProfessional and Non-Academic WritingCarl G. HerndlCollege Composition and Communication , Vol. 44, No. 3. (Oct., 1993), pp. 349-363.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-096X%28199310%2944%3A3%3C349%3ATDARCA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

What Professors Actually Require: Academic Tasks for the ESL ClassroomDaniel M. HorowitzTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 20, No. 3. (Sep., 1986), pp. 445-462.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28198609%2920%3A3%3C445%3AWPARAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

Necessary English: A Faculty SurveyAnn M. JohnsTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 15, No. 1. (Mar., 1981), pp. 51-57.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28198103%2915%3A1%3C51%3ANEAFS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

English for Specific Purposes: International in Scope, Specific in PurposeAnn M. Johns; Tony Dudley-EvansTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 25, No. 2. (Summer, 1991), pp. 297-314.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28199122%2925%3A2%3C297%3AEFSPII%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

The Theory of Methodology in Qualitative ResearchBonny Norton PeirceTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 29, No. 3, Qualitative Research in ESOL. (Autumn, 1995), pp. 569-576.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28199523%2929%3A3%3C569%3ATTOMIQ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

Comments on Ann Raimes's "Out of the Woods: Emerging Traditions in the Teaching of Writing". The Author RespondsAnn RaimesTESOL Quarterly , Vol. 27, No. 2. (Summer, 1993), pp. 306-310.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-8322%28199322%2927%3A2%3C306%3ACOAR%22O%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

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Benesch_1996_Critical Approach to Needs Analysis for EAP

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