International Journal of Innovative Technologies in Social Science ISSN 2544-9338 https://ws-conference.com/ 4(8), Vol.3, June 2018 19 NEEDS ANALYSIS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS` READING SKILLS FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES Ulviyya Mammadova, Ilaha Gurbanova Azerbaijan University of Technology, Department of Foreign Languages DOI: https://doi.org/10.31435/rsglobal_ijitss/01062018/5715 ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Received 18 April 2018 Accepted 19 May 2018 Published 01 June 2018 KEYWORDS This paper describes how, through diagnosis of difficulties and needs analysis, an academic reading course, helped develop the academic reading skills of a group of FL learners in target universities. The 120 participants were native speakers of Azerbaijani and enrolled foreign language studies at university. Data included a background survey, a self-evaluation questionnaire, and a reading strategy questionnaire. A diagnostic and needs analysis was carried out to identify what difficulties the students might have encountered when reading their academic textbooks. Accordingly, an FLAP reading course, mainly based on diagnostic and needs analysis, was designed by providing the students with a wide range of activities responding to the revealed difficulties and needs. The results of data analysis showed the learners' positive development in terms of reading comprehension, awareness of strategy use, and confidence in academic reading. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future study are also discussed. needs analyses, academic reading, foreign language learners, foreign language for academic purpose, effective teaching methods © 2018 The Authors. In the globalized era, we encounter much information in text books, magazines, scientific papers and journal articles moreover on internet. Reading is an important language skill for FL learners 1 in Higher Education in exploring information as references and additional materials for their study. One of the most important skills for Foreign Language (FL) students that need to acquire is the ability to comprehend academic texts (Dreyer & Nel, 2003). In other word, reading is one of important language skills needed by FL learners to get their expectation for their concern. Reading is assumed as the most important skill to gain knowledge of their own discipline for university students in higher education today (Safdarian, et.al.: 2013:121). Reading becomes a path to get knowledge as an input in interpreting a phenomenon or situation. When learners read academic text more, they enable to express their ideas into written text or well-structured speaking connected to the main discussion. In the other word, reading is an activity will be a way to fulfill learners’ expectation for their academic needs. Grabe (2009) view reading as the most important skill required of people in multicultural and international settings, academic learning, and self-study situations. Responses toward changing situation should be done by conducting needs analysis. One of the purposes of need analysis is to know what needs should be fulfilled in matching with the needs of the work place or their profession. Reading is very important for FL learners in adding insights on their study. We can always open the world window so that we can see the new things as references. Reading is a path to the wider world with different information. Needs analysis (also called needs assessment) is the gathering information activity that will serve as a basis for developing a curriculum to meet the learning needs of a particular group of students (Brown, 1995). Soriano (1995) indicates that needs analysis collects and analyzes data to determine what learners “want” and “need” to learn, while an evaluation measures the effectiveness of a program to meet the needs of the learners. This definition tries to make a line between needs analysis and evaluation. Needs analysis aims to determine the needs for a defined group of people, while an evaluation determines to what extent a program meets these needs. 1 Foreign Language learners who are in graduate level of English, German, French and Russian Language Studies at 3 universities in Ganja.