A Needs Analysis for an English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)

Accounting Course

Randal Esteban Blanco Navarro

InterSedes, Revista electrónica de las sedes regionales de la Universidad de Costa Rica,

ISSN 2215-2458, Volumen XXIV, Número 50, Julio-Diciembre, 2023.

10.15517/isucr.v24i50.51353 | intersedes.ucr.ac.cr | intersedes@ucr.ac.cr

A: e teaching of English for occupational purposes relies on the insights that a

detailed needs analysis on the student-client population provides. is paper reports the

ndings of a Needs Analysis (NA) conducted on the occupational purposes of accountants

in Golto, a county in the southern region of Costa Rica. It also describes the participant

population and narrates the historical development of this academic project. Some NA

theoretical principles have been considered during the design and implementation of four

data collection instruments: questionnaires, interviews, a desk analysis, and a focus group.

e main objective has been to identify the communicative target situations that accountants

and accounting employees face in their workplaces in this rural area. erefore, adult

learners with diverse English language prociency levels enriched this NA by answering

three questionnaires, providing two interviews, and contributing to a focus group. e main

ndings include the participants’ needs to explain nancial statements in English, boost

their L2 accounting vocabulary, and describe Costa Rican tax ling procedures to their

stakeholders, especially those who are foreign business owners. is paper yields promising

insights on their occupational needs that would support the language curriculum design

process of a twelve-week EOP accounting course.

R:

La enseñanza del inglés con propósitos ocupacionales se fundamenta en

los aportes que un detallado análisis de necesidades brinda sobre la población cliente

estudiantil. Este artículo reporta los hallazgos de un análisis de necesidades sobre los

propósitos ocupacionales de contadores en Golto, un cantón en la zona sur de Costa

Rica. Describe también la población participante y narra el desarrollo histórico de este

proyecto académico. Algunos principios teóricos en el análisis de necesidades han sido

considerados durante el diseño e implementación de cuatro instrumentos de colección

de datos: cuestionarios, entrevistas, un análisis de escritorio y un grupo focal. El objetivo

principal ha sido el identicar las situaciones comunicativas meta que contadores y

trabajadores contables enfrentan en sus lugares de trabajo en esta área rural. Por lo tanto,

estudiantes adultos con diversos niveles de dominio del idioma inglés enriquecieron este

análisis de necesidades al responder cuestionarios, brindar entrevistas y contribuir en un

grupo focal. Los principales hallazgos incluyen las necesidades de las personas participantes

de explicar estados nancieros en inglés, impulsar su vocabulario contable en inglés, y

describir los procedimientos en la declaración de impuestos costarricenses a sus interesados,

especialmente aquellos que son extranjeros dueños de negocios. Este artículo brinda ideas

prometedoras en sus necesidades ocupacionales que darían soporte al proceso de diseño

curricular de un curso de doce semanas de inglés con nes ocupacionales en contabilidad.

Universidad de Costa Rica

Golto, Costa Rica

randal.blanco@ucr.ac.cr

Publicado por la Editorial Sede del Pacíco, Universidad de Costa Rica

P : contabilidad, estudiantes adultos del idioma inglés, inglés con propósitos

ocupacionales, inglés con propósitos especícos, análisis de necesidades.

K: accounting, adult English language learners, English for occupational purposes,

English for specic purposes, needs analysis.

Un Análisis de Necesidades para un Curso de Inglés con Fines Ocupacionales en

Contabilidad

Recibido: 06-09-22 | Aceptado: 04-10-22

C  (APA): Blanco Navarro, R. (2023). A needs análisis for an English for Occupational Purpses

(EOP) accounting course. InterSedes, 24(50), 25-54. DOI 10.15517/isucr.v24i50.52088

InterSedes, ISSN 2215-2458, Volumen 24, Número 50

Julio-Diciembre, 2023, pp. 25-54 (Artículo).

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Introduction

The Costa Rican government announced an estimated

investment of thirty million dollars to promote the Alliance for

Bilingualism (Cordero-Parra, 2019) and recently signed an educa-

tion policy towards the promotion of languages (Consejo Superior

de Educación, 2021). With such political interest in the teaching

of foreign languages, it becomes essential to understand that this

national goal requires careful consideration of the latest and most

successful language teaching methodologies and approaches

worldwide, along with professional development opportunities

for teachers to research, analyze, experiment, evaluate, and reflect

on the usage of those updated English language teaching (ELT)

principles.

As part of this national effort, public universities have been offe-

ring general English or conversational courses, language programs,

and even a master’s degree with an emphasis on the teaching of

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to drift away from teaching

English for No Obvious Reason (TENOR). Hutchinson and Waters

(1987) state that “the foundation in ESP is the simple question:

Why does this learner need to learn a foreign language?” (p. 19).

Indeed, ESP has been gaining special attention in Costa Rica for

the last two decades (Chevez, 2009; Quesada-Pacheco et al., 2019;

Yeraldín et al., 2015), despite its early origins dating back to the

1960s (Rahman, 2015). Considerable effort must be given to dis-

cover those reasons why an English language (EL) seeks to master

this foreign language.

One of the key components in ESP is the rigorous study of lear-

ners’ needs, wants, and lacks. This prerequisite – A Needs Analysis

– implies systematic research about the participant population,

their target communicative tasks, and contextual factors before

the language curriculum design starts (Macalister & Nation, 2019;

West, 1994). What the needs analysis (NA) findings will fuel is

the curriculum design and future classroom instruction, so those

English language teachers seeking to become familiar with the

tenets and procedures of ESP should prioritize carrying out an NA.

After all, effective teaching practices imply constantly reflecting

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A Needs Analysis

and looking for ways to overcome problems and considering stu-

dents’ needs (Farrell, 2018).

The following NA focuses on the occupational purposes that

accountants and accounting employees from several businesses in

Golfito have regarding the use of English as a foreign language.

This ESP client population resemble other international settings

where participants “need English for contextualized workplace

environment in accounting field” (Nartiningrum & Nugroho,

2020, p. 436). Golfito is a rural county located in the southern

Pacific of Costa Rica where tourism prevails as one the main eco-

nomic activities.

Background

To fully account for the historical development of this NA, it is

important to highlight the following conjuncture; first, the needs

analyst has been in charge of several extension college programs in

this southern region of Costa Rica (Blanco-Navarro, 2020), arran-

ging English instruction for adult learners (Blanco-Navarro, 2021).

From 2018 to 2019, the Southern Regional Extension of University

of Costa Rica offered mainly conversational English courses in

Puerto Jiménez and Golfito through a college extension project,

and there was an initial attempt to address the participants’ occu-

pational needs. Nonetheless, the COVID-19 pandemic halted the

entire project, and courses have not been offered since December

2019. Second, the author, an ESP novice practitioner, was taking

the course LPB7430 Needs Analysis at Universidad Nacional de

Costa Rica, as part of the Master’s Program in Applied Linguistics

(MPLA) with an Emphasis in ESP.

The NA started back in May of 2021 when two hotel workers

who participated in that previously mentioned extension project

from 2018 to 2019, expressed their new occupational challenges

regarding the filling of accounting forms and explaining data in

English. Their main concern also reflected the transition they were

experiencing from being a local hotel into becoming part of an

international hotel chain (Jenkins, 2020). This upgrade in the hotel

status still implies more demands on the services offered, among

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those the availability of fully bilingual hotel staff. By the end of that

meeting in May of 2021, an offer to launch a NA was made, and

basic explanations about how ESP works were also given.

As the NA unfolded, other private accountants and accounting

assistants joined the project in an attempt to consolidate a par-

ticipant population beyond four hotel accounting workers and

enrich the understanding of needs, wants, tasks, and gaps for

accountants in this region. An administrative policy at the MPLA

is to involve at least ten participants in the NA because of possible

drop-outs, but it was not until the end of August 2021 that the

needs analyst was informed to reach such participant quota. In

addition, such decision to welcome more participants proved being

strategic because the main hotel managers remained unavailable

or unreachable to gather their insights on the language needs that

their accounting employees often face or would be facing as their

hotel proceeds into this transition to an international hotel chain.

This unavailability of key stakeholders reflects the often common

“access barrier” in NA for Adult Education as explained by Sava

(2012, p. 15). Therefore, the field work in this NA aimed at not

only the workers in the accounting department at this hotel but

also independent accountants in this rural region.

Based on this background information about this client popu-

lation and the diverse ESP branches listed by Basturkmen (2010),

this NA would fit into the field of English for Occupational Purposes

(EOP) because it focuses on hotel accounting departments and

private accounting offices. The main objective of this NA was to

identify the communicative target situations and tasks that accoun-

tants and accounting employees in Golfito face at their workplaces.

Theoretical Framework

Several definitions have been proposed to establish boun-

daries between the teaching of English for Specific Purposes

(ESP) and the traditional teaching of English for No Obvious

Reason (TENOR). Anthony (2018) offers one of the most recent

definitions:

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A Needs Analysis

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is an approach

to language teaching that targets the current and/

or future academic or occupational needs of learners,

focuses on the necessary language, genres, and skills

to address these needs, and assists learners in mee-

ting these needs through the use of general and/or

discipline-specific teaching materials and methods. (p. 1)

A significant difference between ESP and TENOR is the

establishment of the learners’ needs as the departure prior any

curriculum design and instructional processes. The ESP practi-

tioners first conduct a needs analysis of their participants’ needs

because of its “primary importance in any ESP course design”

(Hafner & Miller, 2018, p.18), whereas there is often a predeter-

mined syllabus in GE and TENOR.

Therefore, needs analysis (NA) is an ongoing process and

prerequisite in ESP. The whole endeavor undertaken in the ela-

boration of a NA reflects a backward-design process or ecological

approach to curriculum because it prioritizes students’ needs and

the sociocultural context (Richards, 2017). Reaching a definition

of what needs and analysis mean in NA has arisen controversy

in ESP and embodied methodological challenges, yet Brown

(2016) describes NA as “the systematic collection and analysis of

all information necessary for defining and validating a defensi-

ble curriculum” (p. 4). Among the challenges and controversies

over conducting an NA, Stefaniak (2020) suggests distinguishing

between need statements and solution statements as participants

tend to focus on the solution “prematurely” without a thorough

needs assessment (p. 28), so the identification of needs should be

nurtured with the insights from several informants.

Because often times participants and stakeholders may refer

to their needs, wants, or lacks interchangeably, the needs analyst

should also consider Sava’s (2012) differentiation of subjective,

objective, latent, manifest, intrinsic, and extrinsic needs. If a need

applies only to an individual, it is a subjective need. A need that

resembles what a group of individuals face represents an objec-

tive one. A manifest need has already appeared, whereas a latent

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need remains hidden, awaiting to become manifest either at

the individual or group level. An intrinsic need belongs to and

appears from within the individual while an extrinsic need often

comes from outside.

This diversity of needs can hinder the NA, for identifying the

EL learners’ needs becomes challenging. For instance, Guerid

and Mami (2017) established as a solution to set the goal of see-

king those “urgent” needs that could be dealt with in a four-week

course as they were administrating instruments and collecting

data from their participants and stakeholders before designing

an ESP syllabus for finance and accounting. As a result, it is

Anthony’s (2018) view on NA as a two-stage process that has gui-

ded this study. Most likely a large-scale NA takes place in advance

to curriculum design, but as the first class approaches and the

ESP course is about to be launched, the ESP specialist will have

to carry out a smaller-scale NA (p. 63).

Brown (2016) lists fours viewpoints on needs analysis in ESP:

democratic, discrepancy, analytic, and diagnostic. The democra-

tic view occurs when all the participants could openly express

their views and fully describe their occupational contexts, so

“needs are whatever elements of the ESP the majority of students

want” (p. 13). This study relies on the democratic view because

the participants work for different businesses such as hotels, pri-

vate accounting offices, a marina, and others.

Types of Analysis

Determining what to analyze has led to the establishment of

several models on needs analysis in ESP. Out of the eleven types

of analysis listed by Brown (2016), the target-situation analysis

(TSA) has been the prevailing scope of analysis since the early

1970’s (West, 1994), and this would be the most immediate way

to grasp a general view of the accounting field and services in

this southern part of Costa Rica. The present-situation analysis

(PSA) will “examine the students’ ESP abilities at the beginning of

instruction” (Brown, 2016, p. 22). There are certainly other types

of analysis that could be considered such as cost-benefit analysis,

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A Needs Analysis

job analysis, performance analysis, training suitability analysis,

person analysis, language audits, and others. From a discrepancy

view on NA, performance analysis explores what high achievers

do and what low achievers need to improve, thus setting expecta-

tions like “performance measures” of call-center staff (Anthony,

2018, p. 46). Certainly, this must take place prior the actual lan-

guage curriculum design of any ESP course. Khalid (2016) even

refers to strategy analysis and means analysis. Due to time and

resource constraints, a needs analyst may carry out some or just a

few of these types of analysis to yield insights into the duties and

tasks of a heterogenous participant population.

In fact, the type of analysis can also vary from a NA to ano-

ther. Khalid (2016) warns: “In practice, most choices [in Needs

Analysis] would be determined by time, money and resources”

(p. 41). For the purposes of analyzing needs within a relatively

unexplored field like accounting, a target-situation analysis

(TSA) according to Brown’s (2016) guidelines would allow the

needs analyst to explore language use, linguistic, and learning

subcomponents (p. 18).

Although this paper exclusively reports on the NA and its

results, the entire academic project with accountants and accoun-

ting employees in Golfito closely followed the model of language

curriculum design proposed by Macalister and Nation (2019).

According to their model, a NA plays a key role as one of the

three outer circles – being Environment Analysis and Principles

other two fields – that have direct implications in the inner circle,

often known as the syllabus. These three sources are intrinsica-

lly interconnected and inform all syllabus design decisions. For

this reason, this paper recounts only on the NA stage, and how it

intentionally focuses on the participants’ target communicative

tasks, within specific contexts, and under a set of teaching and

learning principles expected to be followed during the upcoming

stages of curriculum design and instructional implementation.

The need uncovering process prior the ESP course curriculum

design is exactly what took place in this NA for accountants and

accounting workers in Golfito.

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Other Theoretical Principles Guiding the NA and EOP

Accounting Course Design

There are many language teaching methodologies and approaches

that can influence how a NA is conducted to nurture the forthco-

ming stages of ESP curriculum design and course implementation.

The Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and the Content and

Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) or Content-Based Instruction

(CBI) approaches have guided data collection in this NA. Despite the

“common pitfalls in CLIL” about which Escobar-Urmeneta (2019,

p. 13) warns, the connection between TBLT and CLIL-CBI within

ESP contexts keeps appearing in the literature review. Richards and

Rodgers’s (2014) indicate that CBI addresses subject content and

language learning simultaneously and distinguish between con-

tent-driven CBI and language-driven CBI. This NA seeks for both

tasks and contents in the accounting field that participants would

label as relevant or urgent.

A priority in this NA is to consider and address the four com-

ponents that Poghosyan (2016) suggests for a Task-Based Needs

Analysis, which clearly draws from content-based instruction: 1.

Familiarizing with the subject or field, 2. Establishing the functio-

nal platform in the specific field, 3. Creating an authentic material

bank, 4. Identifying target events. These recommendations will

be followed in the upcoming stages of this EOP accounting pro-

ject, thus assuming a responsible and Informed Eclectic Approach

(Brown & Lee, 2015) by combining Task-Based Language Teaching

and Content-Based Instruction principles and remaining into what

Mwanza (2019) defines as simple eclecticism. This intrinsic rela-

tionship between TBLT and CLIL-CBI is shown when Menegale

(2010) concludes that “the class activities which best respond to the

need of student´s oral enhancement in CLIL context are those based

on tasks” (p. 183). Without a doubt, specialized field contents and

tasks could go hand in hand as key components of ESP curriculum

design and implementation.

In light of such principles, this NA should also guide the early

search, selection, and adaptation of instructional materials to clearly

reflect the participants’ occupational purposes and tasks. Widodo

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A Needs Analysis

(2016) affirms that “developing ESP materials, ‘the cornerstone of

ESP instruction’, involves much more than understanding needs as

entry level of language proficiency, but it touches upon how availa-

ble resources and constraints impact on design and implementation

of ESP instruction as a whole” (p. 279). Authentic materials related

to the Costa Rican accounting context may include resources such

as videos, blogs, or newspaper articles in which native speakers of

English refer to the country’s accounting regulations and procedu-

res. Once the NA results are available, ESP practitioners could then

proceed with course curriculum design and implementation with

pedagogical tasks such as role-plays and problem-solving exercises

to aim at the accomplishment of real-life tasks.

Methodology

The methodological framework in NA for ESP instruction

resembles a qualitative design in educational contexts as open

ended-questions in both questionnaires and interviews prevail

(Creswell, 2012) to gather insights into a so far unknown field such

as ESP accounting in Costa Rica. There is clearly a methodologi-

cal challenge in NA and adult education due to “the difficulty of

assuring the validity and reliability of the measurements [units of

analysis, and codes] of the actual status of the needs” (Sava, 2012,

p. 79). To address these issues of validity and reliability in NA for

adult education, several data collection instruments have been

included in this study: three questionnaires, two interviews with

experienced accountant participants (a semi-structured interview,

an unstructured interview), a desk analysis, and a focus group. This

variety of data collection instruments complies with the way NAs

unfold in the model of language curriculum design. Macalister and

Nation (2019) state that needs, lacks, and wants often emerge “by

a variety of means: by testing, by questioning and interviewing, by

recalling previous performance, by consulting … by collecting data

such as textbooks and manuals … and by investigating the situa-

tions” (p. 5). These instruments were administered from August

2021 to March 2022.

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Through the use of technological tools such as Google Forms

and the rapid spread of questionnaire links via WhatsApp, it was

possible to reach participants from several, distant communities

such as Puerto Jiménez, Golfito, and Palmar Norte. Interviews were

held through the Zoom application. As the information was gathe-

red and analyzed after each instrument administration, the others

were arranged to gain more insights by strategically designing

more specific open-ended questions to reach a present-situation

analysis. Finally, a focus group led to the selection of the most

urgent target communicative tasks.

Individuals and Participants: ESP Client Student Population

The participants’ differences in terms of age and job position

reflect two factors that should be carefully considered during the

upcoming ESP course design (please see Table 1). The fact that

six out of twelve participants are more than thirty years old posts

significant implications. For example, adult language learners may

experience more difficulties, cope with stressful job environments

or positions, and have busy schedules despite showing great interest

in the ESP course (Cozma, 2015; Purwati et al., 2022). Schwarzer

(2009) views them as “whole adult learners” (p. 28). On the other

hand, the younger participants – 25 years old and below – most

likely lack working experience and knowledge of the accounting

demands from stakeholders. Older participants could provide insi-

ghtful information on needs during semi-structured interviews,

but younger participants may learn and acquire the English lan-

guage at a faster pace (Mackey & Sachs, 2012).

T 

T ’ ,  ,   ,

   

Age Job Position

English

Proficiency

Level

Type of

Accounting

20 Accounting office assistant A1 Bookkeeping

22 Accounting office assistant A2 Bookkeeping

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A Needs Analysis

Technician in accounting and

finance, CCSS

Income tax

accounting

24 Accounting assistant at a hotel A2 Bookkeeping

25 Independent accountant A2

Income tax

accounting

26 Accounting assistant at a hotel B1

Financial

accounting

30 Independent accountant B1

Income tax

accounting

30 Accountant at a marina A2

Income tax

accounting

35 Accounting assistant at a hotel A1 Bookkeeping

37 Branch manager at a bank A2

Financial

accounting

General accounting manager at

a hotel

Managerial

accounting

47 Independent accountant A1

Income tax

accounting

Source: Answers provided by participants to the first online questionnaire,

September 2021.

This seems to be a very heterogenous population in terms of

their language proficiency as well (please check Table 1). The level

of six participants was known based on their placement in conver-

sational courses in the college extension project back in 2019. Still,

the other participants were asked to provide their self-perceptions

towards their English language proficiency level in the first ques-

tionnaire. Because there is a person who affirmed not knowing

much English, the enrolling requirement to have at least an A2

proficiency level was considered but not implemented. A standar-

dized language proficiency test becomes necessary to accurately

assess their English level and make further decisions based on the

NA results.

Therefore, a crucial decision in this NA has been to adjust it

to a multi-level population and the methodological implications

(Bowler & Parminter, 2016; Kurbanova & Ataeva, 2020). The par-

ticipants’ self-perception about their proficiency level provides a

general, though vague idea of what to expect in terms of instruction

and class delivery. On the other hand, eight out of twelve parti-

cipants hold a university degree, so their academic background

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could allow them to understand highly accounting specialized

procedures as long as content-based terminology, accounting con-

cepts, and procedures in L2 are effectively mediated. A participant

holds only a high school diploma and lacks this academic back-

ground in accounting.

The accountants’ working experience is also a relevant detail.

Eight out of twelve participants have fewer than four years of expe-

rience in accounting while three individuals have been working

in accounting for around fifteen years. An immediate pedagogical

implication from this result could be to take advantage from those

more experienced participants who could lead the way in descri-

bing and carrying out occupational accounting tasks.

Data Collection

The main objective of the first questionnaire was to gather

demographic information and facilitate the enrollment or invol-

vement in this NA of other accounting workers besides the ones

from the hotel. A secondary objective was to briefly describe

the participant’s working environment to identify at least three

preliminary needs, wants, lacks, and challenges. This first ques-

tionnaire was filled out by twelve participants. Five workers from

a hotel expressed their interest in an EOP course on accounting

since this is the area with which they have been experiencing pro-

blems. They agreed on allowing administrative staff from other

hotels and private accounting offices in the region, so there are

seven more responses.

The second questionnaire finally aimed at recognizing at least

three training needs and occupational-related tasks. Certainly,

once the results from the first questionnaire were ready, the needs

analyst realized that what participants had expressed as needs

were still too broad statements, and it was necessary to clearly

recognize job-related tasks. Therefore, a major improvement in

the second online questionnaire was the explicit effort to consider

what type of analysis was behind each open question. The hotel

and businesses owners and managers were expected to answer

these questions as well, but this did not happen. In the end, seven

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A Needs Analysis

ESP participants replied the second questionnaire and provided

their insights into the target situations or tasks, so more specific

information was elicited.

Just before answering the third questionnaire, participants

could see the preliminary results of the NA through a ten-mi-

nute video arranged by the needs analyst. The main objective

was to prioritize and select three occupational tasks and accoun-

ting topics that participants consider as priorities or “urgent”

needs (Guerid & Mami, 2017) for a twelve-week EOP accounting

course. To arrange Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), partici-

pants were asked to pick up even more specific tasks and topics

that they consider as really relevant to be included in their twel-

ve-week EOP accounting course in 2022. Sharing the preliminary

NA results served for validation purposes as well, so a video was

arranged in Spanish to briefly explain the preliminary findings.

Unfortunately, only seven participants out of twelve answered the

third questionnaire.

The fourth data collection instrument was an unstructured

interview with the hotel accounting manager. Through a Zoom

meeting, the accounting manager referred to what was happening

with the accounting department at the hotel. Meeting and having

her available for twenty minutes was a chance to gather insights

about the tasks and job positions, so the interview followed an

unstructured format by asking few open questions and allowing

this informant to talk and explain as much as possible. Therefore,

this unstructured interview took place at a critical stage during

the NA when efforts were being made to reach either the hotel

owners or the international managers, so it was “on-the-spot sam-

pling decision” or opportunistic sampling in its essence (Shaheen

et al., 2019, p. 35).

The fifth instrument was a semi structured interview with

a well-experienced accountant in Golfito. Therefore, this

semi structured interview had the same goal as the second

questionnaire, recognizing at least three training needs and occu-

pational-related tasks carried out by independent accountants.

The same questions were used, but this time the informant had a

chance to elaborate more on her responses.

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The typical case sampling can enrich the NA with “the help

of key informants like knowledgeable participants (Shaheen et

al., 2019, p. 32), so the needs analyst contacted his former EL

adult learner who works in her mother’s private accounting

office. Both participants showed interest in the project, contri-

buted to this NA by answering the questionnaires, and supported

it as well by inviting accountants in Golfito to be part of this

project. This semi structured interview was recorded, and it was

carried out via a Zoom meeting. Although the questions during

the semi structured interview were the same from Questionnaire

2, this 45-minute interaction with an accounting expert from

the region yielded data that could guide the ESP course design

stage. Considering that there are eight participants that have a

different occupational setting, this interview was an exceptional

opportunity to gain insights on accounting services offered out-

side a hotel business setting. Therefore, the main objective was to

recognize at least three training needs and occupational-related

tasks carried out by accountants that do not work in a hotel.

A desk analysis was conducted as the sixth data collection

instrument. Despite being a relatively unemployed tool in NA

for Adult Education, a desk analysis leads “to the extensive

study of existing written documents [or audiovisual materials]

that provide information related to our topic” (Sava, 2012)

and offers a chance to look at learning objectives from several

accounting programs overseas, so drafting student learning out-

comes becomes feasible in light of other data gathered. This desk

analysis was aimed at identifying both audiovisual and written

texts online regarding Costa Rican accounting procedures and

tax regulations and accounting learning outcomes at educatio-

nal programs overseas. This has also been an attempt to comply

with the environment analysis in the model of language curricu-

lum design, particularly by “recognizing [and considering] the

learners’ cultural knowledge” (Macalister, 2016) and a chance to

follow Brown’s suggestion (2016) to surf the internet to locate

accounting courses and programs along with their objectives (p.

162). Without considering the role of a desk analysis, the needs

analyst felt this urgency to become familiar with the accounting

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A Needs Analysis

field, terms, and procedures since the very beginning of the pro-

cess back in July 2021. The desk analysis report was ready by

October 23

, 2021.

The last data collection method was a focus group. In

March 2022, as part of smaller-scale NA just before the ESP course

design stage, three participants met with the needs analyst and

held a focus group. The main goal was to decide what language

needs and target communicative tasks to include in a twelve-week

course. After the needs analysist reviewed the NA results gathe-

red in 2021 and stressed the importance to prioritize during the

ESP course design process, the participants in this focus group

proceeded to draft a list of specialized accounting contents per-

ceived as “most urgent” to be included in the ESP course. Further

descriptions of the target communicative tasks were recorded and

later transcribed, so more insights were gathered to select the

accounting occupation tasks and break these down into more

instructional tasks and the corresponding specialized accounting

contents applicable to the most common interactions between an

accountant and the foreign business owner.

Data Analysis

Target-situation (task) analysis from a democratic view of

needs in NA can challenge the needs analyst’s educational research

skills. Given the broad responses provided by participants to the

open-end questions in questionnaires and interviews, the needs

analyst created matrixes or tables with their responses and looked

for patterns. A computer software was not used to analyze the qua-

litative data gathered through Google Forms questionnaires and

Zoom interviews. Instead, the needs analyst coded the participants’

answers and attempted to discover patterns that would represent

the most urgent English language needs and target-situations.

Despite the struggles coding this qualitative data and doing either

inductive or deductive analysis, the following results would enrich

and inform the following stage of EOP accounting course design.

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Results

The first questionnaire was administered for the purposes of

gathering basic demographic information, but an initial request for

their needs and tasks yielded the following results shown in Tables

2 and 3. The patterns in their responses were coded into a list of

preliminary needs and tasks.

T 

I     

Needs N (12)

Communicating orally with foreign clients 6

Using key vocabulary about accounting 5

Explaining financial statements 4

Handling accounting software 2

Source: Answers provided by participants to the first online questionnaire,

September 2021.

These are still very broad needs and tasks that may not be fully

addressed in a twelve-week EOP course. As part of instrument

triangulation, it should be highlighted that these patterns would

also be found in the participants’ responses in the second ques-

tionnaire and in the expert interviews carried out. Reaching this

similarity in the results obtained from several instruments repre-

sents a huge relief to a novice needs analyst because it proves this

NA’s internal validity.

T 

I     

Tasks N (12)

Communicating orally with foreign clients, hotel or

business owners

Explaining business registration 3

Explaining tax filing procedures 3

Arranging financial statements and reports 3

Source: Answers provided by participants to the first online questionnaire,

September 2021.

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A Needs Analysis

The results displayed in Table 4 offer the participants’ respon-

ses to the question “What are four tasks that a staff member from

the accounting department should be able to perform and that

require the use of English as a foreign language?” Their responses

could be considered the essence of this NA because these reflect the

nature of what the “urgent” target situations or accounting tasks are,

summarize even further the participants’ responses in a list of nine

accounting tasks, and show how frequently those tasks were mentio-

ned. However, these are just the general tasks and further insight is

needed to take a closer look at their target-situation linguistic nature.

T 

S        

Accounting Tasks N (7)

Explaining revenue and expenses 5

Explaining financial statements 3

Answering and sending emails 3

Using accounting software 3

Explaining international wire transfers 2

Using accounting vocabulary 2

Providing tax advice 2

Explaining billing procedures 2

Explaining business registration - unregister 1

Source: Answers provided by participants to the second online questionnaire,

October 2021.

To analyze those accounting tasks, participants were asked how

the ESP practitioner could break down the tasks into smaller units or

steps. Table 5 lists their suggestions in this regard. These are valuable

pedagogical recommendations to be considered because they also

reflect the participants’ expectations and are aligned with accounting

tasks and content patterns shown in the other tables. Participants

suggest breaking down language tasks by creating smaller specific

vocabulary units. Therefore, a corpus analysis is fundamental to

detect not only those key words and terms but also the linguistic

contexts.

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T 

B      

Smaller steps or units

N (7)

Creating an accounting vocabulary bank 5

Watching videos on presenting financial statements 2

Explaining a company’s revenue and expenses 2

Doing easy and everyday tasks 1

Source: Answers provided by participants to the second online questionnaire,

October 2021.

An interesting participant contribution or recommendation is

to arrange short daily pedagogical tasks, so participants can carry

these out during their working hours. This idea encouraged the

needs analyst to include a specific question in the third question-

naire to find out how much time participants are willing to invest

in the EOP accounting course to design a syllabus accordingly.

T 

M   -  

Most urgent and language-related training needs N (7)

Learning accounting vocabulary 5

Communicating with clients to explain accounting procedures 3

Using accounting software 1

Source: Answers provided by participants to the second online questionnaire,

October 2021.

Most participants – five out of seven – express the same urgency

in terms of accounting vocabulary, so this micro skill should be

emphasized during the ESP curriculum design process. This

vocabulary priority is seen in their responses across several tables

and instruments. To communicate within occupational accoun-

ting tasks, specific vocabulary skills are definitely a must. Further

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A Needs Analysis

performance and gap analysis is needed because the informa-

tion displayed in Table 5 still provides little insight into how task

performance can be assessed and gaps be detected, so deeper

understanding about accounting tasks could be reached.

After analyzing the results from both questionnaires, the uns-

tructured interview with the accounting manager from the hotel

took place and led to the following finding. Despite her constant

denial about knowing the nature of their language needs and target

situations, the participant commented on a key language barrier

within the hotel accounting department: having a hard time explai-

ning to the new business managers the different taxes and financial

procedures that businesses in Costa Rica must follow. In fact, this

remark yielded the similarity that would serve all participants in

this NA. With this valuable information, the needs analyst was able

to determine the common core field (Brown, 2016) for all partici-

pants, including independent accountants. Income tax accounting

should prevail for the rest of the NA as the common core field over

bookkeeping and financial accounting.

During the semi-structured interview, the experienced accoun-

tant focused only on two needs: to explain tax filing procedures and

to describe the new electronic billing systems. Although a needs

analyst should not entirely rely on the responses provided by a sin-

gle accountant during an interview, her insights confirmed once

again that tax accounting appeared as a “urgent” need, even after

the results obtained from two questionnaires. Indeed, without first

identifying all the accounting tasks applicable to most participants,

the NA cannot align with a democratic view on needs analysis. The

participants in the focus group would later confirm the relevance

of these two needs and recommend their selection over other less

urgent needs as the ESP course design stage approached.

Once the common cover field of income tax accounting was

determined, the NA proceeded with the desk analysis to find and

select audiovisual resources – mainly Youtube videos – for further

discourse and corpus analysis. Because of the ample references

made by bilingual accountants to tax issues and business manage-

ment issues in Costa Rica, these authentic videos may be adapted

for pedagogical purposes within the EOP accounting course(s)

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expected to be offered in 2022. A total of sixteen videos were cho-

sen after careful viewing and consideration of the participants’

main accounting tasks. Four newspaper articles stood out because

of their reference to the Costa Rican tax setting. A bilingual private

accountant in the country has a blog worth consulting. In addition,

another discovery was a website of an online accounting school

from abroad and the student learning outcomes set at several

college programs. Finally, a corpus-based discourse analysis out

of these videos or the interactions in English between bilingual

accountants and their foreign clients is expected to be done as it

could provide insights on vocabulary requirements that need to be

strategically addressed during the course design process (Staples,

2019).

Certainly, this desk analysis enhances content specificity in

terms of the Costa Rican accounting context. The desk analysis

results reinforce what the accounting experts expressed during

both interviews regarding the relevance that Costa Rican taxes have

during the language interactions between accountants and foreign

investors, the target situations, and the accounting tasks detected

through the questionnaires. Indeed, the accountants struggle due

to the complexity of tax filing procedures, business governmental

regulations, electronic billing systems, and the recently approved

tax bill in Costa Rica. These are specific contents that participants

should translate or describe in L2 while carrying out the “urgent”

target communicative tasks with their stakeholders.

The last instrument or tool was a focus group held in March

2022. After analyzing all the NA results, three participants agreed

on the selection of income tax accounting and vocabulary as the

top needs to be targeted in the upcoming ESP course design.

Although there are many other needs and accounting fields that

are relevant, the three participants shared the view that the most

urgent needs are to explain tax filing issues to foreign investors

in Golfito and rapidly increase specialized vocabulary. These two

needs seemed to be feasible for a twelve-week course. The remai-

ning needs and accounting fields could be incorporated in other

EOP accounting courses.

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Discussion

To determine a common core field in accounting applicable to

all participants in the NA represented a challenge. Only after admi-

nistering several questionnaires and interviews, the needs analyst

could conclude that their most urgent need – feasible to be part

of a twelve-week ESP course – is to empower these ESP students

to explain tax accounting issues because most of their language

interactions with clients resolves around paying their taxes – which

will be the “carrier content that will form the basis for explaining,

exemplifying, and practicing different learning points” (Anthony,

2018, p. 107). The preliminary accounting tasks and communica-

tive situations obtained in this NA from the questionnaires were too

board. Thanks to the use of other data collection instruments such

as interviews, it was possible to recognize income tax accounting as

relevant to all participants and identify the “urgent” tasks in their

accounting contexts (Guerid & Mami, 2017). The desk analysis led to

the selection of oral and written texts that could be used to conduct

a corpus-based discourse analysis and identify the key accounting

vocabulary in L2 that participants are eager to learn. Because these

resources portray the country’s accounting regulations or context, it

would be wise to follow Cheng’s (2015) recommendation for “ESP

practitioners [to] develop a potentially more productive approach

to interacting with subject-matter experts” (p. 23).

In addition, specialized content and language needs continue

to appear together in this NA. The NA provides valuable informa-

tion about specialized accounting contents that belong to the Costa

Rican business context and shape up the target communicative

tasks. In this regard, when Widodo (2016) mentions and describes

seven features of ESP materials, this author emphasizes this con-

nection between content-focused learning and language-focused

learning that materials should reflect into themes or topics: “stu-

dents specializing in accounting should be provided with texts and

tasks, which fall within the remit of such core vocational themes as

financial statements, the recording process… ledgers [and taxes]”

(p. 281). Specific contents like the recent tax reform in Costa Rica

could be difficult to explain and understand in the participants’

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native language – Spanish (L1), so explaining these tax changes and

accounting procedures in English (L2) is even more challenging.

The participants’ recommendations about arranging pedagogi-

cal tasks they could carry out during their working hours reflect the

issue of learning the accounting terminology in meaningful ways.

In this sense, Basturkmen and Shackleford (2015) have even men-

tioned that “consideration of the language-learning opportunities

that may exist within target work or study areas has been limited”

(p. 88). Thus, participants’ suggestions about how accounting tasks

could be broken down into manageable learning units and as part of

incidental language-learning opportunities within the occupational

contexts reinforce research findings on this regard.

How the need discovering process unfolded reinforces Brown’s

(2016) three main categories of constraints in NA for ESP: situatio-

nal, stakeholder, and theoretical (p. 39). An important constraint

is the novice needs analyst himself due to his current ESP teacher

training and his relatively little experience in conducting NA while

integrating contextual factors, the participants, the stakeholders,

and relevant theoretical principles. All these NA issues cannot be

mastered overnight, so senseless decisions and processes could yield

negative outcomes like facing rejection from stakeholders to pro-

ceed with the entire ESP project or jumping into mere assumptions,

without relying on the information gathered from all the partici-

pants and stakeholders. This ESL/EFL teacher mindset should be

changed to install a needs analyst’s perspective. This clearly rein-

forces the importance of ESP teacher education (Bocanegra-Valle &

Basturkmen, 2019) in regard to carrying out an NA, designing ESP

courses, and having handy a list of key ESP principles to constantly

remind oneself of how assumptions are harmful and subtle in ESP.

In fact, the greatest constraints or limitations in this NA were

situational (company context). The stakeholders’ unavailability and

the historical conjecture hotel managers deal with cannot be more

challenging given their new international alliance (Jenkins, 2020).

Sava (2012) clearly describes this hectic context, “(Training) needs

investigations conducted within organizations or enterprises are a

special case, because they are job-related and performance-orien-

ted, and the potential participants of the training program are

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A Needs Analysis

known from the outset… [and] many training programs are run

on the job” (p. 59). Due to confidentiality issues and hectic agendas,

stakeholders most likely are not going to release sensitive informa-

tion about their business such as sales, profits, assets, taxes, and

others. Therefore, building trust is a prerequisite in case another

NA is conducted over financial accounting and the explanation of

financial statements to stakeholders.

Thanks to the focus group, the needs analyst could make the tou-

ghest decision to determine the common core field of income tax

accounting and the target communicative tasks to focus on during

the upcoming curriculum design stage. What is manageable within

a twelve-week course can vary greatly from the arrangement of a

two-year ESP accounting program because an important limitation

in ESP is the direct instructional hours and amount of independent

studying hours that adult learners could devote.

Although a new NA should be launched every time ESP

practitioners work with a new client population, there are impor-

tant lessons and information here that should not be overlooked

and discarded in future NA in the accounting field. For instance, tax

issues remain fairly the same from a company to another, and there

is often key vocabulary that allow accountants to carry out these

occupational tasks. The needs would vary in terms of the partici-

pants’ proficiency levels and backgrounds, so the ESP curriculum

design process must be adjusted. Some aspects from this NA could

provide insights for other ESP populations in accounting.

If this NA had been limited to the four participants from the

hotel in Golfito, more specificity could have been gained. In that

case, the NA results may have quickly led to a short, twelve-week

course targeting extremely specific needs. For sure, there have been

advantages out of consulting other accounting workers in the region

to gain a broader perspective, but in doing so, the NA detoured from

reaching more specificity. Brown’s (2016) differentiation between

common core and overlaps in specialized fields could empower

novice needs analysts to “deal with the issue of having students with

varying specific purposes within an ESP” (p. 11).

Therefore, establishing a target population turned out proble-

matic and time consuming. This NA had to follow a democratic

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view. Valuable energy and time could have been invested in carr-

ying out deeper needs analysis if the participants had shared the

same occupational context. The important lesson reached is that

having a specific target group of participants, gathering their basic

demographic information, assessing their English language perfor-

mance, and finding out about their learning styles represent the first

procedures in any NA. If these are postponed, most novice needs

analyst may reach little depth in the real linguistic nature of the

target situations.

Poghosyan’s (2016) suggestion for ESP practitioners to immerse

themselves in the specialized and unknown field is clearly a starting

point. It was not until the desk analysis was done that the needs

analyst could realize that accounting is divided into several sub-

fields, such as managerial accounting, auditing, tax accounting,

financial accounting, bookkeeping, and others. Having a subject

matter expert (SME) on board during the NA should have been

a priority (Cheng, 2015) to address the frequent concern among

novice ESP practitioners over highly specialized terminology or

vocabulary (Guerid & Mami, 2017; Kırkgöz, 2019).

This NA has reached data saturation, so the ESP course design

stage could evolve. The application of several instruments broadens

the view of accounting subjects and occupational communicative

tasks beyond what could be included in a twelve-week ESP course.

This provides a big picture of what it means to work as an accoun-

tant or within the accounting department of a business in Golfito

and may enrich several EOP accounting courses.

Conclusion

NA in ESP is not a straightforward process, for many detours

can happen when there is a heterogeneous adult population with

many contextual and situational constraints at stake. This paper has

described the development and the results of an NA conducted for

a limited population of accountants in a rural community, but ESP

practitioners interested in this specialized field could explore if the

accounting tasks and the target communicative situations discus-

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A Needs Analysis

sed here may guide their own NAs and ESP courses. Even though

university extension projects and programs in GE and ESP tend to

remain static and confined within the graduate and tertiary levels,

this NA proves there are plenty of opportunities for innovations

with other adult populations in rural areas that seek to improve

their English language skills and tackle their “urgent” occupational

purposes.

Three pending aspects in this NA are the elaboration of a cor-

pus-based discourse analysis, the involvement of subject matter

experts (SME), and the role of adult learning principles in ESP. In

future projects, ESP needs analysts could identify the highly specia-

lized vocabulary and collocations using the software AntConc and

the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Second,

fully bilingual accountants are SMEs that can guide the needs

analysts by pointing out the language requirements and detailed

descriptions of the interactions between accountants and their

foreign clients. The third aspect that awaits more study is how the

principles of adult learning should influence NAs, for adult English

learners post additional challenges due to their age differences, hec-

tic agendas, diverse English language proficiency levels, and other

traits.

Although general English language instructors may find NA

and ESP challenging, adult English language learners in Costa Rica

seem to be willing to collaborate with needs analysts because of the

relevance that communicating in English has in their occupational

contexts. Therefore, the needs analyst in charge of this paper openly

encourages approaching these innovative methodologies with con-

fidence and patience beyond the university campuses. Despite the

paramount differences between GE and ESP, a transition from one

approach to the other could become less troublesome as more ESP

practitioners nurture this academic field in the country with more

research. In fact, systematic reflection on the challenges, advan-

tages, and procedures for NA and ESP implementation has just

started to gain more attention in the field of ESP teacher education

(Bocanegra-Valle & Basturkmen, 2019). Further research is funda-

mental to comprehend what novice ESP practitioners need to make

such a transition from GE to ESP as feasible and smooth as possible.

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