Students' Views of Academic Aural/Oral Skills: A Comparative Needs Analysis

In this study, 768 ESL students at three different tertiary institutions—a community college, a teaching-oriented university, and a research-oriented university—responded to a survey (adapted from Ferris & Tagg, 1996a, 1996b) about their college instructors' requirements regarding listening and speaking skills, their own difficulties in meeting those requirements, and the relative importance of seven selected academic aural/oral skills or tasks. A subsample (n = 476) of the students' survey responses was then compared with those of 206 instructors at the same institutions to assess the degree of agreement between the two groups of informants. The findings showed statistically significant differences in the students' responses across several contextual and student demographic variables. In addition, the students' and professors' responses differed dramatically on most survey items as well as in the aural/oral skills rankings. The study therefore raises implications not only for listening and speaking instruction but also for the interpretation of needs analysis data.