Needs Analysis for the Development of Fachsprache Course Materials

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-501-0_11How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Fachsprache; Material Development; Need analysis; German Language

Abstract

In addition to stressing general language proficiency, learning German in higher education—particularly in the University of Negeri Medan’s German language education study program—requires mastery of the language for particular objectives. Thus, the introduction of a Fachsprache course is crucial. Learning German in particular fields is the main focus of this course. Teaching materials in this course were found to have limitations. To guarantee the appropriateness of the created materials, a needs analysis is therefore required. The purpose of this study is to determine the needs of students in terms of language proficiency, specialized vocabulary, authentic text types, learning strategies, and challenges faced in Fachsprache classes. 60 students completed both closed-ended and open-ended questionnaires as part of the study’s quantitative descriptive methodology, which also includes interviews and document analysis. Means, percentages, and qualitative interpretations were used in the descriptive analysis of the data. The findings indicated that students’ primary needs were for academic writing skills (4.4) and reading skills (4.6). Health and medicine accounted for 40% of the most needed vocabulary, followed by technology (20%) and other areas like tourism, hospitality, and the arts (20%).The two biggest challenges for students are understanding complex sentence structures (30%) and technical vocabulary (40%). Thus, the creation of Fachsprache materials should concentrate on reading and writing exercises, enhancing technical vocabulary, and offering real texts in the domains of technology and health or medicine. It is anticipated that the findings of this study will serve as the foundation for the creation of Fachsprache instructional materials that are more pertinent, contextual, and useful to students.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Surya Masniari Hutagalung
AU  - Khairil Ansari
AU  - Tanti Kurnia Sari
AU  - Fitri Ervina Tarigan
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/16
TI  - Needs Analysis for the Development of Fachsprache Course Materials
BT  - Proceedings of the International Seminar of Languages, Arts and Literature Education (ISLALE 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 97
EP  - 105
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-501-0_11
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-501-0_11
ID  - Hutagalung2025
ER  -