English for the AI Era: A Document Analysis of English Language Syllabi for Non-English Major Students in Indonesian Higher Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70904/Keywords:
need analysis, syllabus analysis, ESP, AI literacy, Indonesian higher educationAbstract
English language courses for non-English major students have long been caught between institutional expectation and practical reality. Designed to develop communicative competence relevant to professional fields, such courses routinely deliver something far more modest: a semester of grammar review and reading exercises that students could have encountered at secondary school. That gap is not new. What has sharpened it is the accelerating presence of AI tools in academic and workplace settings. This article examines four English language syllabi from Indonesian higher education institutions, drawn from pharmacy, business administration, mathematics and natural sciences, and computer engineering. Using document analysis as the primary method, grounded in need analysis theory, the study asks whether current syllabi reflect the communicative demands of workplaces where AI now mediates how English is produced, evaluated, and used. Three gaps recur across all four documents: an overreliance on general grammar and reading instruction disconnected from disciplinary communication needs; the complete absence of AI tools from stated learning methods; and no mention of AI literacy among the learning outcomes. These are not incidental omissions. They point to embedded assumptions about what these courses are for, and resolving them will require more than inserting a reading passage about ChatGPT.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Febby Pratama Putra, Laila Desnaranti (Author); Wulan Yulian Anggini (Translator)
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