Identifying communicative needs and real-world tasks for EFL agriculture students: a task-based needs analysis

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) aims to prepare learners for real-world tasks, which can be identified through task-based needs analysis (TBNA). TBNA is especially relevant in specialized study programmes with clear language demands, such as agriculture-related programmes for English learners. However, the real-world tasks these learners must perform remain underexplored, as existing studies often rely on linguistic or text-based analyses, underscoring the need for further TBNA research. This study uses a TBNA to explore the communicative needs and target tasks of English as foreign language agriculture students in Chile. It focuses on tasks requiring English in technicians’ jobs and examines perspectives from key professionals. The study employed qualitative data collection, including twenty-three interviews and document analysis. Participants included ten technicians, two managers, and eleven teachers. Findings revealed two main communicative needs and twenty-three target tasks students are likely to perform in the L2 in the target situation, revealing gaps in their English education. The study demonstrates the value of TBNA for triangulated task identification and offers insights for curriculum developers and teachers selecting tasks in TBLT. It also advances TBNA research and presents a framework transferable to similar contexts.