Educational Alternatives, Volume 16, 2018

Abstract: This article describes a needs analysis conducted on the stage when the teacher planned and developed a professional English course for the students of Business Administration in high school. In order to investigate the importance of professional English language knowledge in the sphere of entrepreneurship and to identify in what specific situations entrepreneurs use English in regular work situations in Latvian context, business experts, owners of companies were interviewed. Then, Latvian specialists in Business Administration participated in a questionnaire which aim was to investigate the importance and prevalence of business administrators’ duties performed at work in English. The author also investigated the opinion of Latvian business administrators on what should be the main focus of professional English course: what are the most important language areas and which of the skills should be given priorities in order to perform duties in the foreign language at work after graduating. Afterwards, the author investigated students’ particular needs, wants and expectations for the professional English course. Finally, analyzing the results of the centralized examination for the period of three consecutive years, student English language level at the beginning of the studies in high school was determined. The conclusions of the findings are presented in the end of the article. The results of the data obtained can provide a basis for the ESP course developers.