Evaluation of Business English Writing Course-book Based on the Needs Analysis Model

Since business English (BE) was ratified as an undergraduate major in China by the Ministry of Education in 2007, domestic research on it has been mushrooming. BE writing course is one of the core courses in the module of English knowledge and skills for BE undergraduate program. Although there are more than 354 BE writing course-books have been published, few researches have been done to evaluate these textbooks. This paper aims to evaluate one of the BE writing course-books used by Guizhou University, namely, A Basic Course for Business English Writing. Targeting on the students majoring in Business English, the paper adopted the needs analysis model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters as well as the present situation analysis model raised by Richterich and Chancerel to design the questionnaire, which was used to identify students’ needs for business English writing. Based on the results of the questionnaire survey and the course-book evaluation criteria created by McDonough and Shaw, we identified the problems with the course-book and proposed some suggestions for modifications and further improvement.