Needs-based course design: The impact of general English knowledge on the effectiveness of an ESP teaching intervention

The paper presents an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of a needs-based approach to ESP course design in the context of Greek tertiary education and to measure the impact of the influence of pre-existing English knowledge in relation to the students’ performance in ESP. Experimental research design was employed; the students’ scores in the Oxford Placement Test and the pre- and post-tests were analyzed by means of ANOVA and ANCOVA. The post-intervention data revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of total test scores even after adjustments were made by removing the learners’ previous linguistic competence as measured by the OPT while between-groups comparison indicated statistically significant differences. The results thus, provide support for the efficacy of the adopted needs-based approach to syllabus design.